Can you Remember the Future?… Are you all sitting comfortably?… Then I'll begin…

Once upon a time (where we left off), there was a Bluebird, still unrecorded after two years while most of the other pieces we had written were already "in the can." A new concept was needed for our next project. A condensed history of the planet was an idea Mo and I had discussed… having already covered our inner selves, extra–terrestrials and the destruction of Earth with "Journey" …plus that other abstract epic about our world beneath the waves, so why not start at the very beginning of time? But Bluebird?… how could THAT possibly fit in?

Well, jamming commenced with what was a pre–conceived theme from slightly earlier in 1973, a few months before our August studio date. A respectable German audience was sitting comfortably on blankets and pillows all over the floor area in front of (and alongside) the light show tables (as I was standing on my 2" thick floor switch boards about 40' back in the crowd). People were standing behind me, looking over my shoulder, not knowing quite what to expect next as Nektar embarked on a brand new, albeit somewhat pre–conceived and rehearsed jam one night in 1973. As well as the light show, those fans were eager for music, especially NEW music… and that is precisely what they got! What we had were some pieces, ideas and sequences that would later be rearranged, re–worded and then made into an album… around life on this planet!

The pace was set for the future "I can see you" and what would later become "Let it Grow." Roye's original scat lyrics suggested a love song, but certain words stuck out, like "morning mist" and "I believe" and many other references that Mo & I later reworded into a much stronger message. Roye changed the instrumental theme during a segue jam which became the very beginnings of "confusion." The jam became more abstract before ending without any new inspirations a few minutes later… yet all said and done, we had two new areas towards our project with about 3 months left to put it all together!

There was never a "pre–studio" live version of RTF One recorded, as it didn't really completely exist UNTIL the studio, thus it's easy to forget that this entire album (other than Bluebird) was composed and rehearsed in small sections, then pieces were reworded, rearranged and then recorded… in less than three months. I wrote down seven title ideas for our future album on July 18th 1973, …those ideas were: "Dragons and Things" (Rainbow, who crossed the bridge, was a dragon), "Nektar IV" (duh), "Thru the Eyes of Bluebird", "A Whole in the Universe" (I still like that one), "Down to Earth" (yup, that was mine too),… "Remember the Future", plus a silly one… "New improved bargain offer." …all these titles are still there on my diary page, all of them were crossed out … except "Remember the Future!"

Those two songs, "Bluebird" and "Let it Grow" were gradually pushed towards side two because a whole section depicting the evolution of life was needed first… to begin this album way back in time. This led to long jam sessions in Wembach just before the studio. Mo and I managed to script a tale as TOLD by Bluebird, who had quite unwittingly now become an entity watching our planet… THAT was how we managed to get Roye's Bluebird linked into this album.

Over and above the music, let's talk about those words we finally chose… such as "Take a trip!" This became a double entendre salute right back to "Tab"… then "back in time," to give the suits a much straighter perspective of them. "Life evolving, growing higher" slapped a few million years into one line… and then our link… "not just space that Bluebird sees, …in the sea a new domain" which sewed up a few more millions of years AND brought Bluebird in as the observer… and we were only one verse into the piece. "Evolution," as an orchestrated word, summed this story up very nicely… we then covered a hundred more millennia with "swimming forth, came on land, beast to ape (with) grasping hands"… which opened up the story to "thinking KILL, never ran, lived in caves… enter MAN" …finally getting to our real subject matter… HUMANS, just two verses in. More "Evolution" ushers us into the dawn of Man during the third verse, the discovery of FIRE and tools, with that segment ending on making the wheel… ("watch it now') The following instrumental build up became a backdrop collage of everything you'd just heard during my 2002 live "video" translations.

"Falling down from heaven, twisted trees etc." was both Bluebird's entry AND nature's wrath with hurricanes, tornados etc. (natural "wheels") which sliced, diced and shaped landscapes to rush us into the first millennia A.D. and the dark ages, where Bluebird tells how he'd seen the changes.

Meanwhile, "Rainbow" (the song) became a part of this story. Rainbow the dragon was within a complete song Roye had been tooling around with at various times during earlier 1972 cellar rehearsals. Knights and dragons… hmmm, medieval times, saddles/battles… thus "Rainbow" was bumped into this mid part of side one, where the proper order of things was purposely mixed to accentuate Bluebird's retrospective. Our personal joke was wondering how many times Rainbow would cross that damn bridge on stage… as these modified verses had become tough to remember. The RTF refrain enters after those Lies, Time and Life verses plus the "door" sequencing of musical foundations that we used on Journey, where the same refrain turns up after different "rooms." The final words sung on part one are the refrain of "Remember the Future," just before the extended jamming area I called "Confusion."

Confusion is just that… what the F### is happening, and why are you (Bluebird) telling me all this? …Roye's guitar improvisations and Ronnie's fills are evident right up to the pre–determined ending on Mo's heartbeat… as Side One of the vinyl ended… As ALL of side one was actually put together from musical pieces during weeks of intensive rehearsals in Wembach immediately before the studio, …the final lyrics were actually written IN the studio while the ground tracks were being recorded… it's too bad that I don't have any private tapes from that period, …as I was also quite busy! However, I do have notes from my 73 diary… which could add a lot of color to the book version of these notes. I scoured those set–lists and found that we only EVER played rough drafts of RTF1 TWICE before the studio… in Stuttgart on July 28th '73 then Saltzburg, Austria on August 10th… unfortunately, neither show was recorded.

As we're into a retrospective of what became our benchmark album, I need to stress that the entire RTF foundation was rehearsed, sounds obtained, then laid down on tape in THREE days flat, (Aug 13–14 & 15). It is also interesting that following the studio, we rarely played the first part of side two or "Bluebird," as our live repertoire had suddenly increased by those extra forty odd minutes of RTF, thus certain cuts had to be made early… in fact, although we played some condensed versions that included Bluebird with Dave in 1977, it wasn't until our 2002 reunion that Nektar decided to play the complete unabridged album on stage. During those many years in between, our set–list abbreviations became known to the band as "RTF2" for "Tomorrow never Comes" (Smile) and "Path of Light" (Lonely Roads), whilst "RTF3" consisted of the finale… "Recognition" (I can see You) and "Let it Grow"…

RTF2 was so much fun to play… especially the long improvised intros which changed from show to show. This was also one of the stronger sections with a message… "Smile if you want to, …not when you can, …break down when you want to, not when you can" …"follow me home, 'cos tomorrow never comes" …was (according to the story) all spoken by the boy… though when played live, I substituted my own visual interpretations throughout this area. First I covered happiness & grief, then the age of Christianity by substituting Christ for Bluebird… "You stand before me, fate in your (right) hand, you say tomorrow will never begin, follow me home 'cos today is tomorrow's yesterday" …which took us visually to a time just before the crucifixion via the "Path of Light. I blatantly used carefully edited footage from "Jesus of Nazareth" to depict all of these seperate scenes, as I thought every single word in "Lonely Roads" could easily have been spoken by Christ… "Walking down lonely roads, what do I see?… it won't be long before they come to get me. Name your place, name mine too, where will we be?… it won't be long 'til they crucify me"…especially with that woeful melody. Thus the crying and mourning became the crucifixion itself… then the words "here they come" and "see them run" as disciples found the tomb empty …and "watch them go now" (to spread the "word").

That visual substitution had allowed me to include religions and faiths as a reason for fighting with each other (crusades, jihad, etc.) during the finale… RTF3… where "I can see you" (crusaders riding in the morning mist) also had a message, reminding us that ALL religions have fought for (or defended) their faith using the words "You say that life has no end" or "believe yourself, that's all you (ever) have to do" …an integral part of every single worldwide religion. The part that I'd envisioned Bluebird playing was that of a "stand–in," a super–natural blue skinned entity, to represent a heavenly power of any "different" culture that watches over our varied populations and nature itself. Take a good look around, and at yourselves… you know you (or I) "just can't stop it" …however HE can.

It is all summed up when Mo sings our prophetic finale with Roye (this also became part of our theme for Recycled)… "Let it grow… you don't need no sympathy. You don"t realize how much you needed me, You will realize… that it"s better when you give, 'cause your life IS much longer than you live. The laws of nature are to heal the wounds of man… use them right, and they will help you if they can… BUT… Wrongly used… then you'll only harm yourselves… then it's too late to come to me for help… Don't walk away… give it a chance… Let it grow!" During the sessions, we again tweaked so many words for this album, that printed copies had to be physically placed on music stands in Chipping Norton for the vocal dubs on the 16th of August. From separate instrumental pieces, RTF became a powerful album, Roye excelled with some of his best original melodies, arranged so perfectly by everyone, that this had to be one of our best examples of true Nektar composing… even after 36 years, RTF seems to have stood the tests of time pretty well.
Mick Brockett ©2009 TheNektarProject.com