Every Good Boy Deserves Favour [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Moody Blues | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 20, 1997)
• Original Release Date: 1980
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Polydor / Umgd
• ASIN: B000002GQK
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,528 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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#2 in 1971!

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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Progressive Moody Blues Release, May 12, 2003

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Audio CD)

This CD is likely the least well-known of the classic 7 Moody Blues releases. This CD is also likely the most progressive and experimental of the classic 7, which is saying a lot considering how well regarded "Days of Future Passed" is as one of the first, if not the first, rock concept albums, and one of the first progressive rock albums.

As with most of The Moody Blues first 7 albums, this CD also has a concept, albeit a somewhat loose concept. In this case, the concept is the evolution of man and his society, and whether and how that society might survive. As you can imagine, the tone of the album is relatively downbeat and somber.

The opening track is perhaps the most progressive Moodies track of any Moodies album, "Procession". This song is nothing less than the encapsulation of the evolution of man from man's primate ancestors to today. This song is one of those that have earned The Moody Blues comments such as heavy-handed, pretentious and overblown. Certainly the song attempts to summarize our history with three words: desolation, creation and communication. The music that goes with these three little words is nothing less than art, simple, building in complexity as the piece progresses until the last moments in the song when the song becomes crescendos of guitars, organs and drums, underscoring the complexity of modern life, leading into the next number.

While the next song, "The Story in Your Eyes", seems to try to dispel the downbeat opening, the lyrics have the stanza:

But I'm frightened for your children
That the live that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain

These lyrics add to the general gloom of the opening number, and furthering the theme of the album, which is whether mankind will yet survive. While the lyrics have their downbeat portions, the music is fast and is the song that is closest to mainstream rock on this album. This song was also the one chosen to be the single released from this CD.

The next song is one of Ray Thomas' mellow numbers, but again the lyrics include hints of a darker future:

Wonder why we try so hard
Wonder why we try at all
You wonder why the world is turning around
When in the end it won't matter at all

Before you get the feeling that you should just lie in bed for the rest of your life comes "Emily's Song", which was written about a baby girl. This song is again mellow, a fairy tale of song. There is chamberlain and percussion to give a vaguely cheery lullaby feeling to this song. The most charming theme is that by living through our children we gain a perspective on the world that we've lost as adults (so true!). The song suggests that we can regain what we've lost by being with our children, and letting them pull us into their world. Is it any wonder that grandparents like grandchildren?

"After You Came" is a fascinating song when viewed in the perspective of previous Moodies albums. The song seems to suggest that many of the otherworld lyrics from the previous Moodies albums were unrealistic, and the Moodies, as well as their listeners, needed to regain their earthly perspective. This theme was even more explicitly captured in the lyrics of the next album, "Seventh Sojourn", as the Moodies worked harder to undo the sometimes cult following they achieved due to their intensely spiritual earlier albums.

Just when you think the album is heading somewhere upbeat comes "One More Time to Live", a reprise to the first song "Procession", detailing the host of man's sins and emotions, trying succinctly to express all the things that man could think, and perhaps should think, but also perhaps realizing that the solution requires philosophies and determination that can not be revealed in a simple song.

Before the album takes itself so seriously that you achieve a dire funk, "Nice to Be Here" gives us a fantasy to relieve the stress of thinking too deeply. Ray Thomas has a penchant for creating songs like this one, which are one part childhood fantasy, one part philosophy, and one part longing for escape. A cute and clever song that somehow fits.

The last two songs on the CD seem to relate to each other, and though they are sung in a mellow, almost downbeat, fashion, the lyrics suggest a way out for mankind. "You Can Never Go Home" by Justin Hayward is full of soaring instruments and vocals, and tells us that we are another step toward the future. The song is a love song, but it is a love song with dual meanings that fit into one person's love, and the meaning that love has for the future of man.

"My Song" by Mike Pinder is a fitting conclusion to this album, and makes you wish the album would have gone on for another disk. Mike sings:

Where did I find all these words
Something inside me is burning
There's life in other worlds
Maybe they'll come to earth,
Helping man to find a way.

Mike's other lyrics suggest that he is having a hard time telling us all his thoughts and concerns, and he's ready to take any help to sort it all out, even if it's those extraterrestrials that so many of us talked about in the late 60s and early 70s.

This album has never been considered to be a "great" album. Yet, the album tries to explain where mankind is, how we got here, and perhaps, where we might go. Only a group like The Moody Blues could tackle such an impossible subject in a mere 40 minutes. If you are feeling heavily introspective and mellow, and you are looking for mood music, spin this CD, and you'll find that 40 minutes just wasn't enough.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enchanting, provocative recording, but not their best., September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Audio CD)

I feel strangely ashamed that I don't own this album, although I've heard it many times. It shall be my next acquisition, for I can still remember the wonderful mixture of enchantment and sweet-spirited perceptions contained in this excellent recording. I enjoy the whole album, though my favorites are the masterpiece "One More Time To Live", the sensitive "You Can Never Go Home Anymore", and the exotic, provocative Pinder gem "My Song". When I saw the Moodies for the first time, around l973, they did many songs from this album, including a great rendition of "One More Time To Live". I recommend this recording to those Moody Blues fans who feel that this very special band is at its best when creating magical music sprinkled with hope and innocence. I really must obtain a copy of it myself!

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific Change Of Pace Album For the Evolving Moody Blues!, August 21, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Audio CD)

This is the first of the "post-concept" album releases of the fabulous group that had first put the vital and exciting new sound of synthesized music on the map and integrated it with such mastery with the wall of dreamy electric sound they are so famous for. After exhausting the field of concept albums with four or five in a row, commencing with "In Search Of The Lost Chord" and ending with "Question Of balance a few breathless years later, the group finally retired in the early 1970s to regain their energy and momentum, and eventually released this new album, which features a wide range of terrific songs written by each of the band members, but really lacking any unifying theme other than the interesting word play on the musical scale with the album's title of Every Good Boy Deserves Favor i.e., first letter of each of the words in the title works out to EGBDF, or the musical scale. Nothing like historical musical trivia to spark up a review!

There is a lot of good listening here, and a lot of musical virtuosity, especially with Mike Pinder on the Moog synthesizer, but also with great electric guitar and bass work by Justin Hayward and John Lodge, respectively, and also with terrific work by Graham Edge on drums and Ray Thomas on a variety of wind instruments. Of course, "The Story In Your Eyes" was the smash single driving the album up the charts, and every song from The Procession" to the final "My Song are quite good. My own personal favorites are "The Story In Your Eyes and a terrific song that never got any air time at all, "You Can Never Go Home Again" written and sung by Justin Hayward. By the way, Justin and John (Lodge) later released a interesting album called "Blue Jays" that I would love to see come out on CD. While it is an uneven album, there are four or five songs in it that truly deserve to see the light of day again, and unfortunately they never play any of them in concert. As far as this album is concerned, in my humble opinion it is a definite keeper. Enjoy!