Somethings just come back in a hurry. They don’t mean to. They just do. Usually when that happens, I think it is time for that precious thought or memory to come back. To know you were changed and look back, if you are fortunate enough, to see how good fortune and blessedness turned out over the years. I have many of these moments. I hope we all do.
It was twenty-eight years ago today. I can show you the very spot in the Sears show stockroom at the Greentree Mall. It was 8ishAM. I was stocking shoes. Using a broom stick with a shelf on it to move sizes and brand up lines of vertical shelves. It was a maze of a place at times. Judging what would fit and how so was an education all its own. Problem solving. As I listened to the radio that morning I discovered I had a problem. I had a real problem. Thankfully I was where I was when I was. The Moody Blues were to play a concert at the Timberwolf Ampitheatre at Kings Island outside Cincinnati on August 18, 1988. I had tickets to the show. I had plans. We were going to have a good time. Her name was Elizabeth. She was going to the show with me. All that changed when a radio DJ informed the listening world that The Moody Blues show at Timberwolf had a change of date. The day? Today! And I had no clue until I heard it.
My work shift ended at 3:30 PM. I made a few calls and found my dear friend and fellow rock and roll aficionado (Beatles fan), the great Virgil Ragland, interested in going. We made the show. We had a good time. What was supposed to be a nice day spent with a young lady as we rode roller coasters and ate cotton candy and I impressed her with my ability to throw a football at the carnival games (something I would seriously accomplish in 1991 with a different young lady I took to see The Moodies….when I took a five step drop and threw a football through a hole that had no clearance and got quite the ovation). Instead, I think Virg and I rode the swings and ate a hot dog before it was time to head to the show. We didn’t even make it to the Eiffel Tower. Still, I thank Virg for cruising over to Kings Island that hot July evening.
All these years later I do have great memories of that day. I have greater memories of that song. It was my second Moody Blues concert. Little did I know that in 2016 I would be talking about hearing one of their favorite showstoppers, “I Know You’re Out The Somewhere” make its concert debut 28 years ago. But that is how it has turned out. It was the first show of the tour supporting a new album Sur La Mer. The week it came out my mother and I were on the road traveling to Shreveport, Louisiana to tend to an ill relative. We played that song on a new cassette tape all night long until it nearly snapped in two. It is still Mom’s favorite Moodies’ song.
Looking back I say that change of concert date was a blessing. My dear wife, Carrie, is my Moody Blues concert partner and we are not finished yet…I don’t think. It turned out just as it was supposed to. Thank God.
This is a special, optimistic song. It has grown over the years. From a song for those yearned for, to a song for those missed, a song for those out there somewhere, and a song I start to sing when I am looking for Carrie at the grocery store.
Thank you, Justin Hayward. You have given me a masterpiece that I will never tire of listening to. How do I know? It would have happened by now!
Speaking the I know you’re out there somewhere rights…
Danny Johnson