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‘On The Threshold Of A Dream’: The Moody Blues’ ‘Pathway Of Enlightenment’

The Moodies hit their stride with a memorable fourth album in the final year of the 1960s.

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Moody Blues 'On The Threshold Of A Dream' artwork - Courtesy: UMG
Moody Blues 'On The Threshold Of A Dream' artwork - Courtesy: UMG

The Moody Blues may have had a less than straightforward transition into the highly creative album band we came to know. But by the final year of the 1960s, they were well into their stride. April 25, 1969 saw the release of their fourth album On The Threshold Of A Dream, and in May it became their first UK No.1 LP.

The record was the third by the “second generation” of the Birmingham band. The original rhythm and blues-oriented line-up had hit the top of the UK singles chart with “Go Now” and made the Magnificent Moodies set. They changed direction with dramatic success in 1967 with Days Of Future Passed, which gave them the confidence to follow another conceptual release the following year with In Search Of The Lost Chord.

Never Comes The Day

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Now, as they again worked with producer Tony Clarke and once again with all five members contributing songs, they knew their audience would travel with them on another thematic odyssey. In a specific demonstration of how the Moodies were, with Clarke, becoming a self-contained unit, the album inspired the title of Threshold, the production company and record label they established that year.

Just six months later, when they released the follow-up To Our Children’s Children’s Children, it appeared on Threshold, via Deram in the UK and London in the US. Threshold even had its own record shop, in the band’s adopted base of Cobham in Surrey.

Self-contained Moodies

“It got to the point where we were doing more and more of the things ourselves,” bassist and co-lead singer John Lodge told Circus magazine in 1970. “Like we began working up our own designs for the packages. And it got more and more us, so we finally went to [Deram] and said, ‘How about giving us the complete bill, and you just distribute,’ and they said ‘Yes!’

“Another thing is our interest in other artists,” Lodge continued. “We’ve got four other acts signed to Threshold, and we don’t want to interfere with their thing at all. So with Threshold we’re doing all the things we’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

While they would go on to have many further successes in the singles market, Threshold didn’t contain any hits. The only 45 to come from it, Justin Hayward’s “Never Comes The Day,” missed the UK charts and only reaching No.91 in America. But that didn’t hold the album back one bit. It entered the British listings at No.3, hit the top a week later, and made No.20 in the US, their best showing there to that point.

Lovely To See You

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The LP also included Hayward’s “Lovely To See You” and “Have You Heard,” a Mike Pinder song that had been around as part of the Moodies’ live set since before Days Of Future Passed. Justin told Record Collector magazine in 1996 of the album title: “We could just as easily have said ‘On The Doorstep Of Nirvana,’ because that’s the feeling we were trying to translate.

‘Religious and psychedelic influences’

“We were trying to collect religious and psychedelic influences into an album and make them into a pathway of enlightenment, if you like. I know it sounds terribly pretentious now, but as young men, that’s what we were searching for.”

Drummer Graeme Edge once described the Threshold album as “…when this collective thing really clicked. That was the ignition point when we decided to almost irrevocably intertwine our lives.”

Buy or stream On The Threshold Of A Dream.

 

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Steve Gale

    April 26, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    The Justin Hayward 2008 remastered version received a BPI silver award for sales but the Moodies BPI sales awards are hopelessly wrong with no awards for pre-1974 releases. I suspect that a number of later releases achieved award status but none were issued. Is this something that Universal can look into?

  2. Rheane

    October 14, 2016 at 4:43 am

    In the late 1960s and into the 1970s I was a self proclaimed disciple of Timothy Leary. I spent many hours in the land of the Moody Blues. I still find their music a pathway to enlightenment.

  3. Michael Mousteiko

    May 10, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    And the group is still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! What a travest!

  4. Mark

    May 11, 2020 at 9:43 pm

    based JH quote in the article “We were trying to collect religious and psychedelic influences into an album and make them into a pathway of enlightenment, if you like. I know it sounds terribly pretentious now, but as young men, that’s what we were searching for.” == it seems John was not on the spiritual/enlightenment/LSD bandwagon – and his contributions on this album seem out of place – Send Me No Wine – but Lazy Day is not exactly meditational either – Ray….

  5. Sebastian Baca

    April 25, 2023 at 9:33 pm

    The thing about the Moodies is in my opinion, aside from “Days of Future Passed”, they never made another consistently really good album…but they did have some very good singles.

  6. Shawn Cohen

    April 27, 2023 at 5:40 pm

    Listening to the Moodies at age 14 in 1970 was to take me on a true journey of enlightenment! Those were the days of seeking, feeling, experiencing new ideas and overturning the “Establishment” so they were spot on! I learned so much from their music and I believe it was a true catalyst for my work as a spiritual teacher. I left America for London in 1985 and have seen the Moodies and Justin Hayward as a solo act many times since and he and John are still doing solo tours in their 70’s! Beautiful musicians and lyricists with profound messages in their music! To Those who have ears to listen! Thank you Justin, John, Gray, Mike and Ray for a monumental sonic experiences! Bless you! xx

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