 
Today, October 10, 2025, bassist John Lodge of the Moody Blues took his leave from this planet. This morning, I published the following post on my BlueSky account in memory of his passing:
To which I later added:
Indeed, I often work during the night, and last night I was up around 4:00 AM. For some strange reason (“Isn’t Life Strange?”), I chose to play my “Moodies” playlist, for the first time in a while. I retired around two hours later. As I was shutting down my computer, the very last song playing was John’s “Minstel’s Song,” and the catchy, repeated lines “Every— love … around” (I’m not copying the entire line due to copyright restrictions – here are the complete lyrics) particularly caught my attention and reverberated through my mind.
I had no idea John had passed away. Once up for the day, I first heard the news from my wife around 9:15 AM. I later discovered that the first public news of John’s transition was posted around two hours after my Moodies listening session began.
And, strangely, yesterday (October 9), I viewed the photo (above), taken from John’s 2025 concert-tour poster, when I was looking up information on the British band Kula Shaker, specializing in spiritual topics, who had just completed a U.S. tour. Why was I drawn to view this image of John?
As I explained in the comment I added to my BlueSky post, I felt this premonitionary sensation was due to my “deep, decades-long attunement to the Moodies’ songs and message.” I discovered later this same day that a poster on the Moodies’ Facebook page had “recently been listening” to her Moodies playlist as well. These things can and do happen!
I also feel, on a more supernatural and at the same time on a more personal level, that John’s soul came to say farewell. He left me with his quintessential message: Love! Love! Love!
I’ve been a Moodies fan for nearly six decades. As I wrote in my book First Awakening, “The Moody Blues had long made an impression. I clearly remember riding an escalator in a shopping mall and listening to ‘Tuesday Afternoon’ as it was softly broadcast on the P.A. system when accompanying my paternal grandmother on an errand while visiting my grandparents in Evanston, Illinois during the summer of 1968. My friend Rob and I repeatedly played the ultra cosmic To Our Children’s Children Children in late 1969 and 1970. I was temporarily living with my father [in 1971] when I acquired Every Good Boy Deserves Favour; I recall playing it on a small portable record player and being mesmerized by the opening sequence of exotic sounds and voices on the first track, ‘Procession.’”
I had also posted a similar tribute to Moodies’ founding member Mike Pinder in 2024.
My first Moodies concert was at the Inglewood Forum (L.A.) on Nov. 1, 1972. While remaining a huge fan, I didn’t see them in concert again until the late 1980s. For the subsequent approx. 26 years, I made pilgrimages to see them at various Northern California venues that were located in Concord, Kelseyville, (possibly) Mountain View, Reno, Sacramento, San Carlos, Santa Rosa, and South Lake Tahoe. I’d make a point, wherever possible, to purchase seats on John’s side of the stage. He was always affable and warmly responsive to the audience. I’d make eye contact with him during the concert (well, maybe I’d wave my arms while standing after a song had played to ensure he wouldn’t miss me!), which he invariably acknowledged with a friendly smile and nod.
Now, why should a musical group deeply affect a spiritual aspirant? The songs! Arguably, the Moodies’ body of work constituted the most spiritual of all the groups to emerge from the 1960s. (Steve Windwood’s group Traffic and of course the Beatles mused on spirituality, to name two other such groups.) Their inner spiritual explorations are firmly embedded in their songs.
One blogger noted that John “philosophized” in many of his songs, and this blogger’s observation hits the nail on the head. John and other musical heroes were our philosophers. A young person’s brain isn’t fully formed until their mid-20s, and so young people are impressionable. As a young person listening to John’s deep lyrics, I soaked up his message like a sponge, as I did with other meaningful lyrics that affected me. (Note: I updated this paragraph on October 17, and as I was writing, John’s “Minstrel’s Song” again played on another non-Moodies playlist. John, I hear you!)
My “top ten” list of songs that John Lodge penned from the “core seven” Moody Blues albums are as follows: “(Evening) Time to Get Away,” the popular rocker “Ride My See-Saw,” “House of Four Doors,” “Eyes of a Child,” “Candle of Life,” “Minstrel’s Song,” “Emily’s Song,” “One More Time to Live,” “Isn’t Life Strange,” and another well-known rocker, “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band),” which John wrote in response to those who looked on the Moodies “as spiritual leaders,” per Wikipedia, because of the often otherworldly lyrical content of their songs.
Well, can you blame those of us who found spiritual solace in the Moodies’ lyrics? Their otherworldly songs sent my soul soaring on inner voyages. If they weren’t spiritual “leaders,” they were guides—adept navigators—who skillfully led my spirit to a wondrous, deeper realm that lay within. Songs like theirs are not written nowadays, at least to my knowledge.
I should note that three of John’s songs were among the ten most-performed songs during the band’s touring years (“See-Saw,” “I’m Just a Singer,” and “Isn’t Life Strange”). The group stopped touring in 2018 upon drummer and founding member Graeme Edge’s retirement. I believe I last saw them perform in 2013. Below is a photo of that show, where John can be seen (on the right) as well as guitarist Justin Hayward. Graeme Edge was seated at the drum kit behind Justin; his right hand can (barely) be spotted.
Of course, I enjoyed John’s post-Seventh Sojourn songs as well, such as “Lean on Me (Tonight),” “It May Be a Fire,” and “Gemini Dream.” I also valued John’s one-off 1975 collaboration with Justin, titled (appropriately), Blue Jays, with his notable contribution, “Saved by the Music.” Probably my all-time favorite songs, though, are “Eyes of a Child,” “Candle of Life,” “Minstrel’s Song,” “One More Time to Live,” and “Isn’t Life Strange.”
John Charles Lodge, July 20, 1943 – October 10, 2025. Your beautiful songs, with meaningful lyrics, graceful melodies, inventive structures, and expert musicianship, deeply touched my soul, and opened new perspectives within me. Godspeed, John: beloved, gifted minstrel of song and spirit!
