My Top 1000 Songs #336: The Voice
A guilty pleasure? I guess we could revisit the old debate about whether there is such a thing as a guilty pleasure--are there songs we enjoy with some amount of embarrassment, recognizing they are inherently uncool? Or should we be comfortable with our taste and just like what we damn well please?
Guilt or not, I've always loved this song. 1981's Long Distance Voyager was the Moody Blues' turning point from the arty post-psychedelic mellow pop of their 60s & 70s work into their slicker adult contemporary music of the 80s and beyond (when I largely gave them up). While Voyager had a few more prog-light numbers, this gem was firmly in the radio-friendly pop camp, though avoiding the treacly aspects of their later releases that made them the darlings of local PBS affiliates showing Moody Blues concert films to boomers during fund drives.
Voyager also came out at the right time for me--I was still in my classic rock & prog phase, a big fan of the band's earlier stuff; and while I'd begun my pivot into punk/indie/new wave, I wasn't too jaded yet to give the album the back of my hand. And context aside, "The Voice" is one of their catchiest tracks, a hum-along earworm pop tune that never lost my interest even as I found myself spending less and less time with the band. Once I got to the college station a few years later and immersed myself in indie music, the Moodies were strictly verboten... but, yeah, late at night back in the dorm, I'd still slip on some headphones and play "The Voice."
Live in 1992:
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