Legend of a Mind - the Moody Blues
The parents of British teenagers in the sixties by and large didn't see the cuddly, moptopped Beatles as a threat. Their nemeses, the potential corrupters of their children, were Bob Dylan (they couldn't understand him), Jimi Hendrix (scary electric guitar, black, very sexy, anti-establishment, lock up your daughters) and the Stones (all of the above, plus a veneer of rude yobbishness). Aside from these, they didn't pay enough attention to notice the rest of the great cavalcade of characters from sixties' youth culture, except, peculiarly, Timothy Leary.
Unlike the other parental bêtes noires of the decade, Timothy Leary wasn't a rock star. He was an American psychologist, most famous for his championing of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms and marijuana as being positive mental health aids. He is perhaps most famous for his mantra of "Turn on, tune in, drop out" that was adopted by the hippies of sixties counter-culture.
Perhaps more interestingly, in a 1966 Senate enquiry into narcotics convened with the intention of making drug-use illegal, Leary replied to a question from Senator Teddy Kennedy asking if LSD was not "extremely dangerous" as follows:
"Sir, the motorcar is dangerous if used improperly...Human stupidity and ignorance is the only danger human beings face in this world." He also suggested people should be trained and licenced to become users, just as drivers have to have a driving licence, and that drugs be taken "for serious purposes, such as spiritual growth, pursuit of knowledge, or .... personal development", predicting that if this were not so drugs would become the lifeblood of organised crime, as was the case with alcohol during prohibition.
Needless to say, Leary represented too much of a threat to the establishment, and in 1970 was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment essentially for being in possession of two cannabis roaches (butts of smoked marijuana joints) beginning an extraordinary life of escape, being on the run, extradition, re-imprisonment and, later, celebrity lecture tours and tv appearances.
While the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" of May 1967 is generally regarded as the first rock concept album, the Moody Blues' "Days of Future Passed" six months later can lay claim to be the second. However, the Moodies' next release, "In Search of the Lost Chord" as well as being their finest record, detailed a Hessian quest for spiritual fulfillment, reflecting the psychedelic youth culture of the time.
Ray Thomas, the band's flute player, who died in 2018, writes and sings lead on "Legend of a Mind" itself a tribute to Timothy Leary and a conscious echo of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, evoking English Northern working class culture in the form of the Blackpool style holiday weekend trip as a metaphor for the "trip" of taking LSD.
The song is a mini-opera in itself, moving seamlessly from the music hall world of the English seaside resort to mystical, "eastern" influenced flute and strings section, taking off, soaring skywards with the uplifting Moog synthesiser.
The song begins by introducing Leary as experiencing an out-of-body experience:
"....Timothy Leary's dead
no, no, no, no, he's outside, looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
takes you trips around the bay,
brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary......."
Then the wonderful instrumental middle section, then:
"He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
he'll plant your feet back on the ground,
he flies so high, he swoops so low,
Timothy Leary......"
Leary's evidence to the Senate Committee fell on deaf ears and LSD was made illegal throughout the USA two years later. Curiously, the less contentious drug marijuana had been made illegal 30 years earlier in 1937 as a result of a high profile campaign that relied heavily on racism. The claim was that the majority of users were Mexicans or African Americans, making them unfit for work and mentally unstable. It was also argued that the drug made minorities feel overconfident, giving them ideas above their station. One Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who saw through the act, asserted that the drug was also a threat to white women's virtue, inducing them to sleep with men of other races!
Great song, -Ray Thomas's finest hour, or rather, 6 minutes 40 seconds.
The bottom line we've had a duplicitous government which talks about eradicating drugs while other parts are importing & selling them! Just as was done by the administration of RR when he & Nancy started the "just say no" campaign along with a bunch of propaganda about a so-called war on drugs, all the while his CIA is engaging in gun-running to the Contras & importing tons of cocaine with the knowledge of many high up in his administration, including, of course, his VP, George H. W. Bush, in order to pay for it! Has it stopped? I seriously doubt it.
Sorry, by the way, I concur with you about the MB & that fantastic album, IN SEARCH OF A…