Higher and Higher

Background

The album was the first released on the group's newly formed Threshold record label, which was named after the band's previous album from the same year, On the Threshold of a Dream. It was inspired by the 1969 Moon landing. Drummer Graeme Edge remembers, "It was a very exciting time. Man had just gone to the moon and we thought of the album as a sort of time capsule - all our thoughts and feelings about living in such an epoch-making era." Keyboardist Mike Pinder adds, "To me, we were creating a rocket for every person who wants to go to the moon but couldn't, and would get to do so with the earphones on or the stereo turned up, lying on their backs on the carpet."

Writing

Like the group's three previous albums, To Our Children's Children's Children is a concept album, one with a common theme that ties the songs together. For Children, the band was inspired by the space race and the July 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, which occurred during the album's sessions. Keyboardist Mike Pinder remembers, "We were watching man going to the moon. In the studio, we were watching it. I remember Neil Armstrong setting down. We weren't in the studio that night but I remember it was like 4 A.M. in the morning and I was in my apartment in London. I remember that part of it. But the album was all around the moon mission and man's venturing into space. This was the beginning of maybe discovering man's true legacy." Hayward remembers producer Tony Clarke being a driving force behind the concept: "To Our Children's Children's Children...was really driven by Tony Clarke, our producer. It was something that he really wanted to do, and I'm glad that we were able to share that with him." He elaborates, "He had a bee in his bonnet about doing an album about space; he was an astronomer and followed the stars. He built this dome on the top of his house with big telescopes, and really used to get quite boring about it! But it was a baby of his, and his idea was really to try and coincide releasing an album - in our usual kind of pretentious way - with man landing on the moon. I'd already written a song called 'Watching and Waiting,' which was done on this old pipe organ, and then, to balance that, I had the idea for 'Gypsy.' Clarke confirms, "I very much wanted us to make a space album, and at the time I was very immersed in that sort of thing. Now that was my frame of mind, and I rather pushed it in that direction, so everybody capitulated."

Bassist John Lodge remembers fleshing out the album by asking "What would it be like if we were the people on the rocket ship going out into space...going to the moon, going to Mars. What would we think? What would be our thoughts? And that was what the album was about." The album has the additional theme of the passage of time. Drummer Graeme Edge explains, "To Our Children's Children was kind of buried under stone to be dug up in 200 years with a time capsule kind of feeling." He continues, "The idea behind the album was to imagine that the record had been placed under a foundation stone and wouldn't be removed for a couple of hundred years."

The album, like its predecessors, begins with a Graeme Edge poem "Higher and Higher", recited by Mike Pinder. The spoken word introduction is set to a musical simulation of the sound of the Saturn V rocket blasting off. The band had intended to begin the album with the actual recorded sound of the moon mission rocket launching, and contacted NASA who provided the group with tapes. The sound proved unsatisfactory, inspiring the group to record their own interpretation on Mellotron and rock instruments. Lodge remembers, "We actually got NASA to send over a recording of real rocket taking off, but when we listened to the tape it sounded like a damp squib! We had to set about creating our own rocket sound which ended up sounding more authentic." Pinder varies the pitch of his vocal delivery on the track, with his voice becoming clearer and louder as the song progresses. To help achieve this, he holds his nose and then releases while delivering the lines of the poem. He remembers, "I was holding my nose until that one moment, and then when 'butterfly sneezes', that's when I opened up."

Recording

The album was largely recorded at Decca Studio One in West Hampstead in May, June and July 1969 with additional overdubs in August and final mixing in September 1969. Tony Clarke once again served as producer with engineer Derek Varnals. According to Varnals' records, the backing tracks for songs "Gypsy", "Eyes of a Child" (I and II), "Sun is Still Shining", "Watching and Waiting", "Floating" and "Beyond" all date from May. "Candle of Life" was recorded at Wessex Sound Studios on 25 June. "Out and In" was recorded 11 and 12 July and "Eternity Road", "Higher and Higher" and "I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Hundred/Million" were recorded 29–31 July, all at West Hampstead. Like its predecessor, On the Threshold of a Dream, the album was recorded on Decca's new Sculley 8-track recording equipment.

The careful production, layers of overdubs and lush instrumentation made the album difficult to reproduce live in concert. The Moody Blues were able to perform only "Gypsy" live at the time of its release, leading to a creative decision to strip back the production of their next album, A Question of Balance. Hayward reflects on the situation and remembers the production as "completely obscure and self-absorbed...where we couldn't play the songs on stage – the overdubbing was so impossible, so much, and overlaid." He continues, "I think To Our Children's Children's Children is the one Moodies album that didn't come across on the radio. It didn't jump; it was soft, it was quiet. Everybody was so delicate with it and handling it with kid gloves. The way it was mastered was quiet, and the way it was transferred to disc was delicate. In the end, it ended up getting a little lost. "Watching and Waiting" — when we heard that song in its studio beauty, we thought, 'This is it! All of those people who had been saying to us for the past 3 or 4 years, 'You'll probably just do another "Nights in White Satin" with it' — no! We had shivers up the spine, and that kind of stuff. But when it came out and you heard it on the radio, you kept saying, 'Turn it up! Turn it up!! Oh no, it's not going to make it.' So it didn't happen." Pinder suggests the band aimed too high with the song: "We hoped that a wide audience would be ready for a song like that. Of course, it didn't do well as a single and that was our disappointment. Yet it was one of our most progressive and intricate songs. It embodied so much of what is good about being a human being and living on this planet in this solar system in this universe. How can I put it? It was just too much quality. It was like a Rolls-Royce that was affordable to everyone, but everyone was programmed into thinking that they could never own a Rolls-Royce."

Album cover

The album cover, a gate-fold, features artwork by Phil Travers, who created the group's previous two covers. The album cover reflects the album's theme as a lasting record to be discovered centuries later as an artifact. It depicts a cave painting, but with anachronistic elements including an airplane and rifle. The inner sleeve features a picture of the band around a campfire on a distant planet. Hayward explains, "It was the inside of the sleeve that really said something. We were depicted gathered around a fire in a cave with just musical instruments and a tape machine and outside there was nothing. I don't know where we were, but we were trying to project the thought that we were on a planet that wasn't earth, somewhere that was Utopia for us."

Release

In 1969, the band established their own label Threshold Records under licence to Decca Records. To Our Children's Children's Children was the first of their albums to be released on their own label. Lodge remembers the group's motivation for having their own record company: "We wanted to have our own label, where we didn't have to argue about having gate-fold sleeves or inserts our albums. We saw both music and artwork as a complete package and felt that the advertising and promotion should also become part of this package" He continues, "Total artistic control. It set a precedent for exactly what we wanted to do with our music. Everything had to be right. And not just the music, we didn't want anything to look like it was a sham or a hype." Lodge remembers, "It got to the point where we were doing more and more of the things ourselves. Like we began working up our own designs for the packages. And it got more and more us, so we finally went to them and said, 'How about giving us the complete bill, and you just distribute?' and they said yes! We didn't actually fit into any of the labels. The group and Sir Edward collectively thought of having our own label within Decca. In actual fact, Graeme Edge and I had a meeting with Mick Jagger to see if we could start a label together." The Rolling Stones and the Moody Blues both ended up with their own labels within Decca. Hayward remembers that "the precedent was Apple, The Beatles were the leaders and everybody tended to do what they did. Our idea was an artists' workshop because Decca were prepared to give us studio time and in the end they actually gave us a studio. It did give us control over our own masters and sleeves which was what we really wanted."

Promotion

The group promoted the album through a series of tours of North America and the United Kingdom. One highlight of the band's "Threshold Roadshow" tour of the UK was a performance on 12 December 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall, which was professionally recorded. The concert was released in 1977 on Caught Live + 5 and again as a stand-alone release in 2023.

Reception

To Our Children's Children's Children was critically well-received and sold well, reaching number 2 in the UK Albums Chart and number 14 in the US, their best showing to that date in that country. While the single released from it, "Watching and Waiting", did not do well, "Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)" became a fan and album oriented rock radio favourite, despite never being released as a single, and remained in the band's concert setlist through the 1970s. The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic.

The album played a role in ping-pong diplomacy, and was the first album by a western pop group to be played in China during the Mao Zedong era. In April 1971, English table tennis player Trevor Taylor was invited to play in China as part of the diplomatic mission centered around the sport. He purchased a copy of the record in Singapore en route to the tournament in Red China, and had his interpreter play it in public. He remembers, "They weren't sure about it at first; there are only six records over there and they are all political." It was the first time the audience had heard western popular music, with no exposure to Elvis Presley or The Beatles.

The album was one of those listened to, on cassette tape, by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971.

Personnel

Justin Hayward – vocals, guitars, sitar

John Lodge – vocals, bass guitar, harp, cello, acoustic guitar

Ray Thomas – vocals, flute, tambourine, bass flute, oboe

Graeme Edge – drums, percussion

Mike Pinder – vocals, Mellotron, piano, EMS VCS 3, Hammond organ, acoustic guitar, celesta, double bass

Additional personnel

Sources:

Producer – Tony Clarke

Engineers – Derek Varnals / Adrian Martins / Robin Thompson

Art – Phil Travers

Photography – David Wedgbury