My Top 1000 Songs #688: Peak Hour

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

For reasons that are kinda hard to fathom, I went through a major Moody Blues phase back in high school. Which is an odd thing for an adolescent boy working his way through classic rock history--they were inherently uncool at the time. Their psychedelic earlier work sounded like adults trying to imagine what drugs might be like; their ballads veered into the truly sappy; their harder rocking songs felt forced. But combining those imperfect, disparate strains somehow resulted in some really entertaining records.

I spent a lot of time curled up with a pair of headphones listening to 1967's Days of Future Passed. Didn't much care for the orchestral bits (I ultimately made myself a personal mix that edited out the symphonic interludes and spoken-word poems), but the songs were great. And while "Nights In White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon" were the radio hits, I preferred "Peak Hour." It rocked a little harder than the rest of the record (again, constrained a bit by the Moody Blues not being the most convincing rockers), with a cool hook, but mostly there was something about the vibe that, as a teen in the early 80s, felt so uniquely 60s. Maybe it's that Batman-like surf-guitar interlude? It's kinda like the faux swingin' 60s London of the Austin Powers movies captured in song.

Live 1968:

For purists, the complete album version with symphonic intro:

Live 2009: