1971 studio album by The Moody Blues
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is the seventh album by The Moody Blues, released in 1971. The album reached No. 1 on the British album chart, in addition to a three-week stay at No. 2 in the United States, and produced one top-40 single, "The Story in Your Eyes".
Background
The album is largely a continuation in style from its predecessor, with no grand concept or theme. Bassist John Lodge explains, "Our new album would become a continuation of what we had done on A Question of Balance. We thought if you get things right you should continue on that road."[4] Guitarist Justin Hayward further reflects on the album: "I think that Every Good Boy Deserves Favor is a kind of a searching, seeking record. It was made at a time of tremendous success for us, and that brought on all of the feelings of guilt, inadequacy and self-doubt that accompany that kind of success. It's a bittersweet record that pointed the direction of the next album which was the full stop."[5]
Writing
The title is taken from the student mnemonic for the lines of the treble clef: E-G-B-D-F. These notes are heard on piano during "Procession" and the theme is carried out through the rest of the album.
The opening track "Procession" is the group's only song to be written by all five members. It was intended to describe the history of music from the beginning of time until the album's recording. The only three words heard in this track—"desolation", "creation", and "communication"—are similarly used (along with many other "-ation" words) in "One More Time to Live". Drummer Graeme Edge remembers, "We had nerve in those days! We decided that we could create a piece that would show the history of musical evolution. We began by making grunting sounds and hitting hollow logs, this evolved into both Eastern music and eventually Western music."[6]
"The Story in Your Eyes" opens the album and was a natural choice for a single. Hayward remembers writing the song: "The song just sprung out of my acoustic guitar one day while I was at home. I was just playing my Martin D-28...and the first thing that came to me was the middle-eight section. And from there, the rest of the song came together. I deliberately saw it as a more harder-rocking song from the outset. Only a couple of weeks before entering the studio, I had done a version of it with Mike at his place, with just me playing the guitar and him working out the piano part for the outro. Mike then did eight or 12 tracks of Mellotron, bouncing from one machine to another. And it only sounded good when he had done it and multitracked it."[7] The lyrics were inspired by a relationship, but also the personal dynamics of the band. He explains, "It's always about a love affair, isn't it? I wish I could tell you more, but some of that is private. Despite its personal nature, "The Story in Your Eyes" is also kind of about the band. 'We're part of the fire that is burning, and from the ashes we can build another day.' There's a kind of confession in it, as we were soon about to go through a rather awkward phase."[8]
The track "Emily's Song" was written by John Lodge for his newborn daughter.
"Nice to Be Here" is a whimsical Ray Thomas song where he imagines witnessing a concert performed by woodland creatures on makeshift instruments. The song was inspired by Thomas' lifelong admiration of nature with additional inspiration from the children's books by Beatrix Potter. Thomas recalls, "I've loved fishing ever since I was a little kid. I used to camp out by a lake a week at a time fishing. At first all the wildlife buggers off but after you've been there for a few days they realise that you're not any threat to them. They run all over your feet, I've even had kingfishers landing on the end of my rod. So I got a great kick out of writing 'Lovely weather must climb a tree.' I was a little kid again. And I just went through a band really, 'Silver minnows were devising. Water ballet so surprising'."[9] He remembers the session fondly: "The song was great fun to record. Particularly trying to get Justin to play a guitar solo using only one string, like the frog in the lyrics. He actually managed to get it down to two strings!"[10]
The contemplative "You Can Never Go Home" was inspired by grief. Hayward remembers in a later interview, "I remember what I was going through emotionally then – I was losing people and there was a lot of grief around my life. It was a difficult time for me, those early years of the Moodies. It's worth remembering to value what there is now."[11]
Recording
Sessions ran from November 1970 to March 1971, with a break in December for an American tour where they played Carnegie Hall. The sessions were again overseen by producer Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals. The bulk of the album was recorded at Wessex, London instead of their usual Decca studio in West Hampstead. Hayward explains the change in setting: "It was almost a kind of rebellion by us. It was really change for change's sake as we wondered if the grass would be greener recording elsewhere. We were also trying to come to terms with the fact that our music was no longer 'underground' but had taken on a life of its own and we were having to perform in large arenas in America. Our new material was almost apologetic in its approach at that time."[12]
For "Procession", Edge uses a recently invented electronic drum kit. He remembers, "I had a control panel in front of me. There were pieces of rubber with silver paper on the back, with a coil that moved up and down inside a magnet which produced a signal. When it worked it was superb, but it was very sensitive to any surge or change in electricity. When I tried to use it on stage the whole kit would go bananas as soon as anyone turned stage lighting on and off. It was okay for studio use as if it went haywire you could turn it off and start all over again!"[13] He reflects on his motivations for trying the new technology: "I was always conscious of the drum's ring being out of tune. So I wanted a drumkit that you could tune to the key of a song. That's why people started to tape cigarette packets to drums and all that—to eliminate that ring so it wouldn't mess with the guitars. And that kit was a dismal failure—but a heroic failure."[14]
On "The Story in Your Eyes", Hayward plays acoustic guitar on the backing track, with electric guitar later overdubbed. He explains, "I first put the acoustic guitar down using the Martin D-28, with myself and Graeme Edge on drums, and then worked on it from there. I also double-tracked the acoustic. When it came time for the electric guitar part, I used a Cherry Red 1963 [Gibson] ES-335 that I've had since 1968. The electric guitar that opens the song — including feedback that's in tune to an A note — and goes all the way through the song is the ES-335 direct into the Normal channel of an AC30 Top Boost turned up full. In the solo and at the end, that's the ES-335 again through a Marshall Reverb-Fuzz Unit."[15]
Hayward reflects on Mike Pinder's influence in arranging their songs and how he helped drive the rhythm when recording songs in the studio: ""His contribution was also in the rhythm of the band, because if you listen to the early records, the main rhythm is held by a tambourine, which was always being played by Mike. Mike would never play piano or anything on the first track. We'd do drums, bass, guitar, and Mike on tambourine. And it was Mike who we would follow - all of us, even Graeme on drums, would follow Mike, and so his was always the tempo. You listen to the early records, you see how far up front the tambourine is, like in "The Story In Your Eyes". You listen, it's carried by a tambourine, it's so simple."[16]"
In recording Mike Pinder's "My Song", the artist desired that his vocals sound like he was outside the world, looking down on it, like an astronaut on a spacewalk. To achieve the effect engineers Derek Varnals and David Baker constructed him a large carton to wear over his head. Varnals remembers, "I then filtered the signal to make it sound like a transmission from space. We were trying to create something serious, but everyone was laughing hysterically—everyone except Mike, who was the only person who couldn’t see what we were seeing: a quite Monty Python–like image of someone standing perfectly still with a box covering his head. It eventually ended up sounding a bit like Darth Vader, but this was several years before Star Wars was made."[17]
Album cover
The cover art created by artist Phil Travers was inspired by the work named Der Kristall (The Crystal) by German artist Sulamith Wülfing.[18]
Release
The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic. In April 2007, the album was remastered into SACD format and repackaged with the two extra tracks.
In 2008, a remaster for standard audio CD was issued with the same bonus tracks.
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