Editing Days of Future Passed (section)

==Background==
The Moody Blues had started out as a [[rhythm and blues]] band, and had achieved commercial success in late 1964/early 1965 with the UK No.1 and US Top 10 single "[[Go Now]]", but by late 1966, they had run into financial difficulties and personnel changes, and decided to change creative course. Guitarist [[Denny Laine]] and bassist [[Clint Warwick]] left the group to pursue other interests, allowing [[John Lodge (musician)|John Lodge]], former bandmate and friend of Ray Thomas to join the group on bass. The band would find guitarist and singer [[Justin Hayward]] through [[Eric Burdon]] of [[the Animals]], who had put out an advert for a new bandmember of his own. Thomas remembers, "He'd advertised in the local musical press and found somebody. I was having a drink with him in a club, and he said, 'I've got a load of replies in my office; if you want to go through them, you're more than welcome."<ref name="Kopp">{{Cite web |last=Kopp |first=Bill |date=2024-01-04 |title=Moody Blues' Ray Thomas: His Final Interview |url=https://bestclassicbands.com/moody-blues-days-future-passed-interview-8-31-1777/ |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=Best Classic Bands |language=en-GB}}</ref>

The addition of Lodge and Hayward brought two additional songwriters into the group, allowing the band to pursue a new creative direction. New singer and guitarist Justin Hayward explains, "We were originally a rhythm-and-blues band, wearing blue suits and singing about people and problems in the Deep South. It was OK, but it was incongruous, getting us nowhere, and, in the end, we had no money, no nothing. When I came into the band as a songwriter in early 1966, Mike was the only one in the band who was writing, and the songs we were writing together were nothing like anything we were doing in our live act. And then, literally one day, we said we've got to do something entirely different. So we decided to write our own material and do only our own songs."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Arnold |first=Thomas K. |date=1990-08-31 |title=Moody Blues Look to Future, Recall the Past |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-31-ca-150-story.html |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> New singer and bassist John Lodge continues, "We hadn't been to America. That was the amazing problem because, before we made ''Days of Future Passed'', we were singing songs that originated in America and, having never been there, it seemed like a really strange thing to do – sing about a country or an environment I had no first-hand knowledge of. That's why we said, 'OK, let's write about English blues. Let's write about us.'"<ref name=":0"/>

One particular concert experience gave the band new resolve and drove the band to make a clean break with their past style. Justin Hayward remembers, "We were getting dwindling crowds and decreasing money. It all came to a head when we did a show in Stockton during March 1967. We were so bad, a fan accosted us afterwards and told us we were the worst band he'd ever seen, and we'd ruined the night for him and his wife who'd paid £12 for a night out and had seen the dreadful Moody Blues! On the way back in the van, Graeme – who was asleep lying over the equipment at the back – suddenly woke up and said quietly, 'That guy was right. We are rubbish!' It was the moment we ditched the R&B covers, got rid of our Moody Blues suits and decided to stand or fall by our own songs. What did we have to lose?"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Domelast |first=Malcolm |date=2020-04-25 |title=The Moody Blues: "We partied with Hendrix, Keith Moon, The Beatles..." |url=https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-moody-blues-the-ultimate-interview |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=louder |language=en}}</ref> Hayward continues, "We had been playing music that wasn't suited to our characters. We were lower middle class English boys singing about life in the deep south of the USA and it wasn't honest. As soon as we began to express our own feelings and to create our own music our fortunes changed."<ref name="ReferenceA">Powell, Mark. Liner notes essay, 2006 Days of Future Passed SACD Deluxe Edition.</ref> "Our audience was suddenly different. People started liking us for the right reasons. There was an honesty about our playing that was completely apparent."<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2012-06-12 |title=Revisit The Moody Blues' landmark album, 'Days of Future Passed' |url=https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/revisit-the-moody-blues-landmark-album-days-of-future-passed |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=Goldmine Magazine: Record Collector & Music Memorabilia |language=en}}</ref>

One prominent element of the group's new musical direction was the use of the [[Mellotron]]. Lodge remembers, "When we sort of got together in 1966, we were trying to find the right keyboard for Mike. We tried the piano and it wasn't really what we wanted in the sound. Then we tried a [[Hammond organ]], a [[box organ]], a [[Rhodes piano]]. We tried a [[Farfisa]] organ and that didn't work and then Mike said, 'You know, I used to work for a company called Mellotron and they invented this machine that sort of simulates strings.' So we went in search of one."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Fessier |first=Bruce |title=Moody Blues return to desert to launch 'Days of Future Passed' 50th anniversary tour |url=https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/entertainment/music/2017/05/31/moody-blues-return-desert-launch-days-future-passed-50th-anniversary-tour/357014001/ |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=The Desert Sun |language=en-US}}</ref> The Mellotron is a keyboard instrument where each key plays a tape loop of a recording of another instrument, chorus or orchestra. Developed by the West Midlands company Streetly Electronics in the early 1960s, the instrument served as a precursor to sampling keyboards and synthesizers. Mike Pinder, a previous employee of Streetly, used his connections to purchase one of the instruments for the group. Lodge remembers, "There was a social club at one of the factories in Birmingham, called Dunlop{{clarify|date=April 2024}} – 'Fort Dunlop' they manufactured tyres – and, they had one of these Mellotrons that no one could play. So we went to see them. I think Mike and I went and spoke to them and we bought it from them. It had never been played. So, Mike set about finding out how to make it work."<ref name=":0" /> Pinder continues, "Les Bradley of Streetly electronics gave me a call and told me that he had found me a suitable instrument at the [[Dunlop Rubber|Dunlop]] tyre factory social club. I went to see it and I just had to have it. At three hundred pounds, instead of the usual three thousand pounds, the instrument was a steal."<ref name="ReferenceA"/> An October 1967 ''[[Sunday Mirror]]'' article gives the price of the band's Mellotron at £1,300, which was paid for by an air conditioning business millionaire, Derek McCormick.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Bently |first=Jack |author-link=Jack Bentley (musician) |date=1967-10-22 |title=Gear Change: Moodies return—with millionaire backer and Thirties wardrobe |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/808615384/ |access-date=2024-11-15 |website=[[Sunday Mirror]] |page=31 |language=en-US |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

Though the instrument could prove fickle in concert, Pinder's experience allowed him to overcome any challenges. He explains, "I knew how they were built. I knew how to put the Mellotron together and how to take it apart."<ref name="Kopp"/> Lodge continues, "It was basically tape loops on every note and after every 12 seconds, the notes stopped. So he had to find of way of playing other notes until the spring brought it back to playing mode again. It was all pretty complicated and Mike solved this. The Mellotron had two keyboards. One was for solo playing and the other had all rhythm sections. So, Mike took all the rhythm sections off and duplicated the solo parts, so he could use two sides of the Mellotron as an instrument. That was very clever."<ref name=":0" /> Edge remembers, "Mike figured out to add horns, strings, bagpipes and all that sort of stuff behind it and turn it into a more natural musical instrument."<ref name="Goldmine Staff">{{Cite web |author=Goldmine Staff |date=2012-06-12 |title=Revisit The Moody Blues' landmark album, 'Days of Future Passed' |url=https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/revisit-the-moody-blues-landmark-album-days-of-future-passed |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=Goldmine Magazine: Record Collector & Music Memorabilia |language=en}}</ref> The instrument's ability to reproduce orchestral string sounds in the studio and in concert paired well with Ray Thomas' flute, which he had recently adopted in place of harmonica. He explains, "I had been playing flute, so it was an ideal marriage for the flute with the strings. We decided to really do it like a classical-rock fusion, I suppose you'd call it."<ref name="Kopp"/>

Hayward reflects on the overall impact of the Mellotron on the band's music: "Mike and the mellotron made my songs work. That's the simplest way I can put it. When he was playing piano it was difficult for me to try and find something that Moody Blues would be percussive on the piano and that would be interesting. And particularly because Mike had already played, you know, [[Go Now|the greatest piano single ever]], so that was going to be an impossible act to follow. But when he found the mellotron suddenly my songs worked, you know. When I played the other guys 'Nights in White Satin' they weren't that impressed until Mike went on the mellotron and then everyone was kind of interested. (laughs). Because it really started to hang together from the mellotron."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kubernik |first=Harvey |date=2013-11-01 |title=The Moody Blues Justin Hayward and the Incredible Saga of their "Days Of Future Passed" album {{!}} Cave Hollywood |url=https://cavehollywood.com/the-moody-blues-justin-hayward-and-the-incredible-saga-of-their-days-of-future-passed-album-by-harvey-kubernik-c-2012/ |access-date=2024-04-29 |language=en-US}}</ref> Edge reflects on three distinct developments that drove the band's change in sound and creative development: "I think it was three different forces coming together. One was [[Tony Clarke (producer)|Tony Clarke]], the producer. The other was the Mellotron, which Mike Pinder was playing. And the other was Justin Hayward joining the band, because he didn't come the [[rock 'n' roll]] route, he came the [[English folk music|English folk]] route. So his feel for chord structure was just that little bit different."<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Moody Blues: Band of Brothers |url=http://www.jimnewsom.com/PFW-GraemeEdge.html |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=www.jimnewsom.com}}</ref>