Tag Archives: Moody Blues Songs

“Candle of Life” (Moody Blues Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Welcome back to another all-new edition of the Laptop Sessions! This summer, Jim and I went through and listened to all the Moody Blues albums — the classic seven (from Days of Future Passed to Seventh Sojourn) and everything that followed (including Long Distance Voyager and the recent, awesome Strange Times). I had heard a lot of Moody Blues songs previously and had seen them live a couple times, but I never really appreciated them until this little summer exploration.

Anyway, this is a song from their album To Our Children’s Children’s Children — it was on the “Gold” collection, too, so it’s not THAT obscure. Not that I’ve been known for choosing obscure songs or anything… 🙂

Without further ado, here it is. Keep checking guitarbucketlist.com daily for a new session EVERY DAY from either Jim, Jeff, or myself. See you next time!


Christmas, Volume 2 – Playlists on Parade

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By Chris Moore:

This is the second installment in my Christmas music playlist series, perhaps my most brilliantly titled one yet!  😉

As you’ll notice, I’ve done my best to present a wide span of time periods and topic matter, including songs that touch on winter in general, the legendary figures of Christmas (such as Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, etc.), and the spiritual music honed in on the “reason for the season” (i.e. the celebration of the birth of Christ).

Perhaps my greatest failing in this list (and, with a subject as broad as Christmas, I am sure to have many) is the lack of traditional Christmas songs, hymns and otherwise.  I have two comments about this: first, it is simply a fact that many, if not most, artists have tended to pour more of their creative energy into non-denominational tracks, perhaps hoping to avoid alienating their audiences, and second, there is also a tendency for truly great bands to record some of their best performances on their own original holiday music.

For this reason, you’ll see a lot of contemporary classics of the Christmas genre represented here.

If you’re a person who appreciates and perhaps even prefers traditional music, I would strongly recommend checking out the original Beach Boys Christmas album for “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” which was cut from this list only because “We Three Kings” is included in the BnL/Sarah McLachlan version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”  Brian Wilson recorded some fine renditions of traditional tracks on his 2005 solo release What I Really Want for Christmas, including “O Holy Night,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “The First Noel,” and “Silent Night.”

And, if you can get beyond the gravel in his voice, Bob Dylan gives a bang-up, wannabe 1940’s treatment to many of these tracks, plus “O’ Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The track listing below is another assortment of Christmas songs, fast and slow, happy and sad.  In fact, starting with the hopeful but tentative tenor of Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas,” I plugged in several of my favorite somber yuletide tunes: BnL’s “Green Christmas,” the Moody Blues’ “A Winter’s Tale,” and Ben Fold’s Grinch soundtrack offering “Lonely Christmas Eve.”

Don’t fret, though, there are plenty of upbeat tracks to balance it all out.  Consider the typically punky/poppy Weezer take on “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” the disaster-averted hilarity of Relient K’s “Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town,” and the Temptations’ excellent and unique arrangement of “Rudoplph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

As always, I hope you enjoy reading through this playlist, and that I’m able in some small way to nudge you toward getting into the spirit of the season, despite how busy or how burdened you may be.

Check back next week for the third installment in the series!

1. “Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me)” – Elvis Presley

2. “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” – Weezer

3. “Jingle Bells” – The Brian Setzer Orchestra

4. “The Man with All the Toys” – Brian Wilson

5. “Someday at Christmas” – Stevie Wonder

6. “Green Christmas” – Barenaked Ladies

7. “A Winter’s Tale” – The Moody Blues

8. “Lonely Christmas Eve” – Ben Folds

9. “Away in a Manger” – Johnny Cash

10. “Wonderful Christmastime” – Paul McCartney

11. “Feliz Navidad” – Jose Feliciano

12. “Christmas All Over Again” – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

13. “Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town” – Relient K

14. “I Wanna Be Santa Claus” – Ringo Starr

15. “Hey Santa!” – The Wilsons

16. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” – The Temptations

17. “Frosty the Snowman” – The Beach Boys

18. “Merry Christmas, Baby” – The Beach Boys

19. “Christmas Evening” – Jim Fusco

20. “Auld Lang Syne” – Barenaked Ladies

“I Dreamed Last Night” by Blue Jays (Justin Hayward & John Lodge of the Moody Blues) Cover

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By Jim Fusco:

Okay, better late than never!  I just forgot to post this video and even though I kept reminding myself, I’ve been very burned-out lately, so I just couldn’t go through all the motions.  Thankfully I recorded this video a few weeks ago when I was in slightly better spirits.  Not that anything is particularly wrong- I just feel a tad bit overworked, in general.  But, that feeling comes and goes.  I hope that, after a day finishing up yard work and such outside on a beautiful day, that we’re entering a calmer time soon.

I tried making plans today to hang out with 0ne of my best friends, but when I looked at my calendar, it was all booked up every weekend until Thanksgiving.  It’s all fun stuff- concerts, parties, get-togethers at our house- but, it was a pretty sad feeling to say to him, “Sorry, man, I’m booked.”  It’s tough juggling a new marriage,  new house, a website, three jobs, and the massive amount of projects and ambitions I have.  When all these things are working at full-tilt, I feel great- like I can rule the world.  But then, I slowly start to realize that I cannot rule the world and then everything gets overwhelming.  So, it stinks for a few days and then I’m back to sorting things out again.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but I felt it necessary considering that I take this Laptop Sessions project very seriously and don’t want it to become a “whenever I get the chance” thing.  I don’t work that way- when someone says, “I’ll get to it when I get a chance,” they really mean that it’s never going to get done.  And for those that are currently enjoying the last Masters of the Universe album, “Homestead’s Revenge,” well then, you’re probably happy that I don’t for people to finish things “whenever they get a chance”.

Onto tonight’s video:

“I Dreamed Last Night” by Blue Jays is simply one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.  Other than a guitar solo and harmonies (two things I love, but aren’t necessary in this song), this is a PERFECT song.  If you haven’t heard the original, do yourself a favor and download it.  This is a great story for me because of the way I remembered this song:

I was in Northampton, MA for a day trip and went into this small record store.  In the top section above the rest of the albums, they had a Moody Blues Starter Pack.  There were four records for eight bucks and they were in amazing condition.  In fact, the copy of “Long Distance Voyager” (one of my all-time favorite albums) was never played.  To this day, I don’t have the heart to play it- it’s over 30 years old now and is brand new!  Anyway, inside the set was a copy of “Blue Jays”, which was a one-off album for Justin Hayward and John Lodge of the Moody Blues.  There’s a cool story behind that album, too:

Justin Hayward and Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues decided to work on a project together after the Moodies broke up after the “Seventh Sojourn” album.  But, Mike Pinder (like Gene Clark of the Byrds) is a notorious homebody and backed out of the project after a while.  So, Justin Hayward called in John Lodge to collaborate and to add a few of his own songs.  The album was titled “Blue Jays” because they’re the two members of the Moody Blues with names that start with “J”- get it?  Blue-J’s? 🙂

Well, I fired-up the turntable and put the album on.  I instantly loved it.  Here I had a brand-new (to me) “Moody Blues” album!  I knew all the rest of their albums, but we never got this one on CD, so I never heard it growing-up.  I knew “Remember Me, My Friend” from a Moody Blues compilation I got recently and loved that song.  So I knew I’d love the rest of the album.  There’s something about the sound on “Blue Jays”- it’s very “classic rock” sounding with great guitars and a wonderfully full production.  The songs themselves, for the most part, are some of the best Hayward ever did.  Lodge’s songs were good, too, but I liked some of his earlier work, including “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock’n’Roll Band)” and “Ride My See-saw”.

Then, as I was listening to the album, “I Dreamed Last Night” crackled onto my speakers.  I instantly remembered it.  It must’ve been on a compilation set my father played a lot.  My brother remembered the song, too.  And when I heard it, I instantly ran over and played it again.  I called my wife upstairs and embarrassingly sang it to her at the top of my lungs.  I couldn’t stop talking about it for days- this song has one of the best tunes I’ve ever heard.  It has slow parts and fast parts.  It’s sad and yet triumphant.  In a word, it’s amazing.

So, when it came time to do the new season of the Laptop Sessions, this was near the top of the list.  Even though I don’t play the song in the same guitar tuning as Justin Hayward does, it’s still in the same key and I think it gets the sentiment across very well.  I hope you’ll love this song as much as I did and will check out this album- it’s a lost gem if I’ve ever found one.

Have a great one and I’ll be back on time for my video on Thursday, October 28th.  Enjoy tonight’s cover song acoustic version of “I Dreamed Last Night” by Blue Jays!

“Blue World” (Moody Blues cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to another version of Jim Fusco Tuesdays here on the best music video blog ever created: the Laptop Sessions!

My special guest is coming, I promise, but we’ll have to wait at least another week.  But, it’ll be a great performance and I’m really looking forward to it.

So, I had to do an impromptu video tonight.  I have been practicing this song for many months now, but I always had other Moody Blues songs cued-up so I never got to it.  But, I had to do this video tonight up in my room because it’s just simply too cold in the studio now and I don’t wanna wait for the heat to kick in.

So, the video doesn’t look that great, but the sound is there, and that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? 🙂

Tonight, I bring you a great song by the Moody Blues from their album “The Present”.  This might be considered the last great Moody Blues album, because they were still popular, relevant, and had all four members contributing in a significant way.  I, of course, love the “Strange Times” album, but I definitely feel like I’m the only person in Connecticut (other than people I know personally) that knows of that album.

“Blue World” is a well-done song and has a classic Justin Hayward sound to it.  I love the chorus and I even love that over-the-top Pat Moraz keyboard/synth work.

The only problem with this song is the introspective lyrics that Hayward is so accustomed to writing.  He’s like the Mike Love of the band.  I mean, in this song, Hayward mentions his songs “The Voice” and “Fly Me High”.  He’s done this in other songs, as well.  But the thing is that “The Voice” was from the PREVIOUS album!  It’s not like he had a lot of time to reflect on the message of that song…

Well, I hope you enjoy tonight’s entry into the Laptop Sessions’ catalog.  Chris and I are going to have a battle to the death to find out who’s stuck with Original Wednesday tomorrow, but I may guilt him into it, seeing that I’ll be away on business for the first time!  I may be back in time and I’ll have stories to tell.  I’ve never been to New York City alone before, so tomorrow should be interesting!  Have a great one and I’ll be back sooner than you think!