Please scroll down and read the previous three posts in reverse order to start from the beginning. And remember – if you ever doubt that what I’m telling you is the truth, keep reading and listen to the music. Listen with your heart and your head as the puzzle pieces fall into place.

The Moody Blues’ first seven albums were produced in quick succession, with all members feeling that they were on the cusp of something big. For Justin the steady flow of love convinced him that they were on the right path, that glory would come to them as well as commercial success. “I thought I’d end up as the hero – thought that glory would be mine, but soon I was to find it wasn’t to be. Cause in this part I’ve got to play, it doesn’t quite turn out that way,” he sings in Meanwhile some years later.

It didn’t turn out that way because in the mid-seventies something happened. The psychic connection between himself and the young woman began to fade on her side, and then was gone. The sudden vacuum was devastating to him. His dreams – his expectations – of being reunited collapsed. Then the Moodies parted ways and he was left without an avenue to reach her at all.

John Lodge empathized and together they created Blue Jays to further the quest. Justin’s pain is evident in so many songs, but most notably in Nights, Winters, Years when he sings “Tell me – how can love be wrong, and feel so right?“

The haunting song I Dreamed Last Night expresses Justin’s realization that the woman he loved couldn’t bridge the gap between them. Despite the connection of souls, real life held her in its grip. Or maybe she didn’t understand. Maybe she was too frightened by the magnitude of the feelings. “And you told me we had the power. And you told me this was the hour. But you don’t know how. If I could show you now.”

“Like a bird on a far distant mountain. Like a ship on an uncharted sea. You are lost in the arms that have found you.” It was true. She was in the arms of another man. She was moving on without him.

If you doubt me at all, listen to Who Are You Now? In a heart-wrenching plea Justin sings “Who are you now, first love of mine? If you could see, you’d reach out for me.”

In that same song he sings “Goodbye to the fields and byways. I remember saying I don’t want to leave – cause you were all there was to know about me.” He’s speaking of their time together in the afterlife, which he remembered, and his departure for this life seven years before she was due to be born.

It is a sad fact that this beautiful, heartfelt song was a turning point for her that would add another seventeen years to their separation. It is these words that did it: “Somewhere on this crazy island a familiar stranger sleeps so far away.” I’ll explain this a little further along.

Justin decided to record a solo album and Songwriter was the result. It lays bare the range of emotions he was battling at the time. Songs like Tightrope and Doin’ Time express his frustrations. Others attempt to change his focus, to shake free of the whole quest. But he lapses back into pain and self admonishment in One Lonely Room. And the little known Heart of Steel vents some of his anger.

At this time he wrote a tribute to his wife Marie (of the same name), expressing his love of and support for her. The earthiness of it is a stark contrast to his other ballads.

The making of Octave in 1978 was difficult for all the band members (for various reasons) with a kind of desperation permeating the music. John Lodge wrote “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone” which alludes somewhat to the manner of Justin’s death in his former life, and Survival, almost as an arm supporting his friend. Mike Pinder wrote “One Step Into the Light” in the same effort, and I expect “I’m Your Man” was Ray Thomas’ gesture as well.

For his part Justin appealed directly to his lost love in Driftwood, urging her to come forward and alluding to her rebirth with these words: “Time waits for no one, no, not even you. You thought you’d seen it all before, you really thought you knew.” He dared to address the night of their death, fearful as he did that the horror of it might cause a further retraction in her mind, but hopeful that by addressing it, she might overcome any doubts that what lay between them could possibly be real. “I don’t remember what we said in the confusion that night. I only know what’s on my mind – what’s in the future, we will decide.”

The name “Mary” is whispered in that song. The significance of that I’ll reveal later.

In Had to Fall in Love Justin speaks of the place he’s in – unable to move forward, unable to let go, unable to escape the responsibility he’d been given. The Day We Meet Again is self-explanatory, but to the person on the other end, listening with a heart overwhelmed, the plea “Hold on. Don’t let go!” has a meaning that drives straight to the center of a long buried memory.

Please see previous post – Why You’re Here -to ensure continuity.

Justin was born in the house next door to his grandparents’ home on Dean Street, Swindon, Wiltshire, on October 14th, 1946. The row of closely packed houses bordered the railway line of the Great Western Railroad. His early life was spent there and in Berkshire before the family moved back to Swindon.

His parents were teachers, and enlightened people by Justin’s account. Being raised in that environment would be crucial to dealing with what was to come.

Justin spent hours listening to his grandfather’s gramophone records, and he was entranced by the Anglican hymns he heard in church, fueling his love of music. But it soon became evident that he had been born with talent – God given some might say. He learned to play the ukulele and then the guitar, and was performing in professional musical theatre in his early teens. There was no doubt he was destined for a career in music.

And what a blessing that was, given the nature of the quest that would propel his life.

But life for Justin was progressing along normal lines, filled with girlfriends and gigs until his late teens, when something happened that shook him to the core. It charged his life with meaning and purpose, and, at the time, promised glory.

He had always been a sensitive person given to rare insights, but what he experienced in those moments spoke right to his soul. In an interview with Sammy Sultan in 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlij906ZsY) at 43:56 when Sammy asks why the opening track of Spirits of the Western Sky is called In Your Blue Eyes, Justin replied somewhat cautiously: “Yes. There’s things that happened to me in my teenage years and early twenties and people that happened to me that made a huge impression on me and……it’s just about……someone that……uh……that I hope is still there and sometimes thinks of me the way I do them.”

The bravery and resolve that took was visible on Justin’s face. So was the relief in saying it, though he knew the ramifications could threaten to topple his life and hurt the ones he holds most dear. The lifelong struggle between conflicting loyalties and responsibilities could be wrestled no longer.

What he had seen so long ago was the death of himself and his wife in his previous life. They were on honeymoon, after a long, close relationship. I will tell you more about that horrifying experience later, but he relived it in those moments.

It was perhaps then that Justin saw his wife – reborn as he had been – living a new life. He knew she was far, far away and very young. In fact she had been born equidistant from the place where they’d died though in the opposite direction, with a vast ocean between them. She was somewhere in the western sky.

Her face had changed, as his had, but the signature energy of her soul was unmistakable. He could see her, hear her. And as more and more knowledge came to him he realized that they had loved each other through many lifetimes – each with its own trials and separations.

This was not an ordinary love. Not a love born of physical attraction, convenience or mutual dependency. This was the love of the soul.

When trying to explain the emotion captured in Nights in White Satin, Justin has often said that he was at the end of one big love affair and the beginning of another. And this was taken at face value. In fact he had learned that love continues into death and continues to grow and mature there, ready to face the challenges of a new life. But that is not conventional thought in the west. “Some try to tell me thoughts they cannot defend.”

Out of that initial awe, shock, hope and despair came one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Anyone who hears it knows it comes from a deep, beautiful agony. Nights in White Satin stands as an anthem to that impossible love.

But who to confide in? Who would believe him?

And what to do? How could he find this young girl again? She had changed – so had he. Her whereabouts were vague, elusive.

He knew he had the perfect vehicle – music. He would write songs to her. He would work hard and become famous so that she would hear them. She would know the past just as he did.

And then she would come home to him.

Loyal fans of the Moody Blues and in particular Justin Hayward – those of you who have joined me here – have always known that there is more to the man than a beautiful voice and abundant musical talent. You’ve always known that there is something deeper – a mystery carefully hidden in plain sight – which has tortured him over the years. You have sensed the depth and beauty of his soul.

His is a story of devotion and fortitude – of overcoming pain, of bearing humiliation, of holding fast to his belief. He waits to be divested of such a responsibility, but he carries on because he knows what it will mean to the world.

The time to share this is now, so I will no longer be the “only other person to know.”