Under a Raging Moon

The other day I was talking with some friends about what our 3 favorite albums are.  Talk about a hard question!

As I thought more about it, it occurred to me that one of the albums that I’ve continued to think about over the years is a little know album called “Under a Raging Moon.”   It was a tribute by the lead singer of The Who, Roger Daltrey, to their deceased drummer Keith Moon.

To those of us who grew up in the age of classic rock, and particularly those of us who play drums,  Moon was a legend.   There are lives that we cannot live for any number of reasons, but that doesn’t keep us from sometimes secretly wishing we could.  Keith Moon’s life, wild and out of control and bound for death though it was, was (and maybe even still is) such a life for me.

Below are the lyrics to the album’s title song.  I find them even more haunting now than I did when I first heard them years ago.  Caught up in the passion of knowing what one was born for, seeing “Zion”, having a golden age in our lives with people so important to us that somehow now we’ve lost, remembering it all, just knowing what it is to “lay the thunder down”… and then, of course, those final lines:  Why are the young so blind?

Such great stuff…

Under a Raging Moon

by Roger Daltrey

In the searchlights
You could see us as we circled around
Down below us
You were screamin' I
could hear the sound
I could see your arms
Reaching up to me

Like a demon
Feel the madness running thru the crowd
We were freedom
From the moment that we hit the ground
And the wild man
He laid the thunder down

Do you remember me?
Like I remember you
In a sea of hands
You came shining thru
In the mist of time
I can see it now

All my life I will remember this
Under a raging moon
For this moment I was born for this
Under a raging moon
Under a raging moon, We
were flying there
Under a raging moon, We saw Zion there
It ended all too soon,
Under a raging moon

We were out there
When they handed us the rebel's crown

All the headlines
All they tried to do was tear us down
But the wild man
He didn't fool around

Do you remember me?
Cuz I remember you
Yeah you won my love
When the dream came true
When my blood ran high
I can hear it now

All my life I will remember this
Under a raging moon
For this moment I was born for this
Under a raging moon
Under a raging moon, We were flying boy
Under a raging moon,
It's worth dying for
It ended all too soon,
Under a raging moon

Taking me back to better times
We never read the danger signs
Why are the young... Why are
the young so blind?

Comments

[steve mobley]

You had to love Keith Moon... he was such a loon, and totally insane when he was playing his drums. But he was willing to totally abandon his sense of shame or cares of what people thought of him in order to give himself to his art. And it's a rare soul indeed who gives that much of himself to anything, let alone every time they have to perform. It's very hard to play a Keith Moon drum line note for note because it doesn't follow convention. One of a kind. Love the last lines. Interesting blog.