Yet, when their name came across my news feed today, that one song just started playing in my head. It’s sweet melody and harmonies are just unforgettable to me.
I can never forget “Your Wildest Dreams” or where I was in my life when that song appeared on my ghetto blaster’s radio back in 1986.
Spring of 1986
The second semester of Grade 11, so the Spring of 1986, was an interesting time for me. Some of my friends got their licences, so we were hanging out in Lethbridge more. We cruised the strip, went to see movies, ate out, and played racquetball and basketball down at the YMCA on Fridays. It was “teen night”.
The second semester of Grade 11, so the Spring of 1986, was an interesting time for me. Some of my friends got their licences, so we were hanging out in Lethbridge more. We cruised the strip, went to see movies, ate out, and played racquetball and basketball down at the YMCA on Fridays. It was “teen night”.
I also got interested in girls, and one in particular. It was my first real, deep crush. I ended up talking to her, having classes with her, and even studying with her.
The other thing I did was start to write a play about that period in time. Initially, it was intended to be a long love letter that my friend David Perlich would give to her, expressing how I felt. That was not quite what ultimately happened, but that is a long story.
One of my goals was to use songs in the play that expressed how I felt. Songs that told my story.
So I cast around for a lot of songs.
One that caught my ear was “Your Wildest Dreams” by the Moody Blues. I wasn’t too hopeful this girl felt the same way about me as I did about her. My thinking was I would never go out with her in my wildest dreams.
That song never did make the cut for my play, but that doesn’t diminish what a great song it is and how much I love it.
The song
“Your Wildest Dreams” came out in April of 1986 as a single, and was later part of the Moody Blues’ 1986 album “The Other Side of Life”. I guess a lot of people felt the same way I did about the song, because it went all the way to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart; number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart; and number two on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Wikipedia reveals “Your Wildest Dreams” was the band’s second biggest hit in the States.
“Your Wildest Dreams” came out in April of 1986 as a single, and was later part of the Moody Blues’ 1986 album “The Other Side of Life”. I guess a lot of people felt the same way I did about the song, because it went all the way to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart; number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart; and number two on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Wikipedia reveals “Your Wildest Dreams” was the band’s second biggest hit in the States.
The band
As “Your Wildest Dreams” received more and more air play, I learned the Moody Blues had actually been around for a long time.
As “Your Wildest Dreams” received more and more air play, I learned the Moody Blues had actually been around for a long time.
I even asked two of my definitive sources back in 1986 for musical knowledge. Mr. Gid Vuch was my Social Studies 20 teacher. When I mentioned the Moody Blues, he told me they weren’t new, but had been around for a while. My brother had been into music for a long time. When I asked him about the Moody Blues, he said the same thing, they had been a round a long time. He evoked earlier work such as the song “Ride my See Saw”.
Over time, I learned more about their previous songs and discovered I had heard some of them.
Their first hit was “Go Now” which reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964.
They would also have “Nights in White Satin” which peaked at number 103 in 1967 but was re-released and peaked at number two in 1972, becoming their biggest US hit.
There was “Tuesday Afternoon” which peaked at number 24 in 1968; the aforementioned “Ride My See-Saw” which peaked at number 61 in 1968; “The Story in Your Eyes” which peaked at number 23 in 1971; “Isn’t Life Strange”, which peaked at number 29 in 1972; and “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band), which peaked at number 12 in 1973; and more.
They also released “The Other Side of Life”, the title track from that 1986 album, as the second single after “Your Wildest Dreams”. It peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The last single I remember from the Moody Blues was “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”, released in 1988, and peaking at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. Wikipedia reveals it is a sequel to “Your Wildest Dreams”, and written by the same person.
I always thought those two songs went well together. Now I know why.
The Moody Blues were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
All the original members of the band have passed away.
Parting thoughts
When I got into music seriously in 1984, everything was new to me. I had no concept what came before that, and learned all that gradually over time. It was really exciting, because discovering older music was just like discovering new music to me, because I had never heard it before.
When I got into music seriously in 1984, everything was new to me. I had no concept what came before that, and learned all that gradually over time. It was really exciting, because discovering older music was just like discovering new music to me, because I had never heard it before.
Still, it sometimes surprised me that I would hear a new song from a band, and discover they had actually been together a long time.
One of the best examples is the Moody Blues. I had never heard of them before, only to discover they had been around more than 20 years when “Your Wildest Dreams” came out.
Discovering their older stuff, especially “Nights in White Satin” was a gift.
I wouldn’t have imagined it – in my wildest dreams.
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