[A view of the interior of the Mellotron M400. Click the image to enlarge. To learn more about how the Mellotron works, see this page (where I found this image) at the Candor Chasma “information about Mellotron, Fairlight and other vintage keyboards” site.]
A dim little back corner of the cabinet which houses musical-instrument history is occupied by an odd device called the Mellotron. It was an early “synthesizer,” sort of. But it didn’t create the sounds of other instruments artificially, by generating electronic pulses and sending them directly to amplifiers and sound boards. The Mellotron played strips of audiotape, several seconds in length, on which had been recorded a host of musical instruments: at its simplest, one note per instrument per strip of tape. Choose your instrument and press a key on the keyboard; the corresponding tape strip moves over a playback head; and out comes the sound of that instrument playing that note. When you release the key, the tape is repositioned so the playback head returns to the beginning of the strip.
(It puts one in mind of that Samuel Johnson wisecrack: “It’s like a dog dancing on its hind legs. The wonder is not that it does it well, but that it can do it at all.”)
Among proponents of the Mellotron in the 1960s and ’70s — its first heyday — were the Beatles (who used it in “Strawberry Fields Forever” and other songs), Yes, King Crimson, and various other progressive-rock performers. Peter Sellers (!) and L. Ron Hubbard (!!) each owned one. More recently, says Wikipedia, the thing has been making a comeback, put to work in various projects by The Strokes, Rush, Arcade Fire… It’s an exhausting list.
Maybe the Mellotron’s biggest fans were (well, technically still are) The Moody Blues. One of their members, Mike Pinder, had worked at the company which manufactured the Mellotron. He brought that knowledge with him, using it to create all sorts of odd effects which no one had ever coaxed from a real-world instrument. (Pinder allegedly introduced the Beatles to the Mellotron, too.)
One result: you immediately knew a Moody Blues song, even before you heard the vocals.
(A good thing, too. While I’ve always liked their music, their lyrics almost never bear close-up examination: a blend of hippy dreaminess, socio-political commentary, love songs which aren’t quite love songs… The ideal way to listen to them is to sort of let your mind go out of focus, so it doesn’t snag on a given incongruity.)
Here’s a good example, “How Is It (We Are Here),” from their 1970 album A Question of Balance. Listen for that between-the-lines eeee-e-e-eeee effects, the woooooo-ooos in the background: those aren’t strings and woodwinds, they’re a bunch of audiotape loops sliding back and forth over their playback heads.
Lyrics:
How Is It (We Are Here)
(The Moody Blues)How is it we are here, on this path we walk,
In this world of pointless fear, filled with empty talk,
Descending from the apes as scientist-priests all think,
Will they save us in the end, we’re trembling on the brink.Men’s mighty mine-machines digging in the ground,
Stealing rare minerals where they can be found.
Concrete caves with iron doors, bury it again,
While a starving frightened world fills the sea with grain.Her love is like a fire burning inside,
Her love is so much higher it can’t be denied,
She sends us her glory, it’s always been there,
Her love’s all around us, it’s there for you and me to share.Men’s mighty mine-machines digging in the ground,
Stealing rare minerals where they can be found.
Concrete caves with iron doors, bury it again,
While a starving frightened world fills the sea with grain.How is it we are here
How is it we are here
How is it we are here…
(“Fills the sea with grain”?!? Well, I warned you.)
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P.S. While checking around the Web about this instrument, I learned of a recent documentary about it: Mellodrama (2010). Check around that site for a trailer and other information.
Nance says
I wind up sending at least one of your music posts a month to my son, the sound professional; he may know all the big names in music by their first names, but I know the very place to get the most fascinating music tidbits. I’m pretty sure he acts like these discoveries are his own when he shares them with his friends, but you and I know you get full credit.
I had a boyfriend once who thought the Moody Blues had discovered the Secrets of The Universe (big “Threshold of a Dream” abuser). I didn’t want to tell him I found them insipid. Never did tell him. Guess I won’t be sending HIM this link.
When I finally get around to writing Sheep-Dipped, Part 2, I’m going to pretend that I stumbled on that little L. Ron Hubbard/Mellotron factoid all by myself. That sound really does fit in nicely with the whole E-Meter scam. Oooo-eeee-oooo.
John says
Nance: my first love was (like the first love of many people) unrequited, but for many years I never quite got over her. We were always close friends though. When she got married, she asked me to be the photographer at her wedding; to my credit, and surprise, I declined. But I did sneak into the back of the church in time for the processional music she’d chosen: “Nights in White Satin.” Still can’t hear that song without getting this tense sort of strangly-gasping feel at the back of my throat.
I listened to the Moodies a lot in the ’70s-80s. They were (often? always?) good about including lyrics with their albums, which — because of the hearing impairment — I normally would have appreciated a great deal. Alas, I was just un-impaired enough that I could hear the lyrics once I’d read them…
But I probably shouldn’t pick on them for their lyrics. As I said, I loved their sound, and if I squinched my ears up enough the key words in the lyrics still came through — giving me a sense that they were meaningful, even profound. And the gods know their songwriters didn’t have a monopoly on bizarre metaphor, muddled themes, and fractured-but-allusive syntax.
You may find this 1952 Time Magazine feature interesting. It’s an account of LRH’s abandonment of dianetics, in favor of the then-newly, uh, discovered science.
Nance says
Digging into that Time article with a long-handled spoon…and thanks!
Why DID the Moodies piss me off? Besides the saccharin philosophies, I mean. Basically, I could not figure out how Old Boyfriend felt about me and I kept looking for answers in those worn-out vinyl tracks he always played whenever we were hanging out at his place. I finally concluded that he didn’t play music that he thought I’d like or music that might communicate something; he only played what he liked…and there was the whole problem, on the record. Not my first taste of narcissism in love.
Speaking of narcissism, she wanted YOU to permanently record the happiest day of her life without you?! Whew, did you luck out.
John says
Nance: So my family and friends told me at the time. The whole episode, pathetically, didn’t extinguish my torch. I stayed in touch with her intermittently; she separated and divorced a few years later and then I became a fixture again. Finally, finally drifted apart (after a certain amount of the not uncommon melodrama). Lost touch completely, except via very rare email, and then she died in 2001.
Between that and your story, wow… What masochistic knots humans “in love” tie themselves up in…
“There was the whole problem, on the record”: very nice.
John says
P.S. for Nance (and anyone else still tracking this conversation): over at McSweeney’s, John Speck has come up with a list: “What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You.” The entry for people who favor the Moody Blues reads:
Not sure what to make of this, but I thought I’d pass it on. :)