"Gemini Dream" is a 1981 single by the progressive rock band The Moody Blues. It reached number 12 on the US Hot 100, as well as number 1 on the Canada RPM Top 100 Singles chart. It is ranked as the 28th biggest Canadian hit of 1981.
The song was the first of three singles released from the Moody Blues’ 1981 album Long Distance Voyager, which also included "Painted Smile", another track from the album, on the B-side. Two more songs from Long Distance Voyager, "The Voice" and "Talking Out of Turn", were subsequently released as singles after the album's release.
"Gemini Dream" was written jointly by the band's lead guitarist Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge, both of whom won an ASCAP songwriting award for it. While Hayward and Lodge had collaborated on a duet album outside of the Moody Blues in 1975 called Blue Jays, "Gemini Dream" was the first song performed by the Moody Blues that they had written together. On the studio recording, and most live performances, Hayward and Lodge sing lead vocals in harmony.
"Gemini Dream" was the first Moody Blues single to feature Patrick Moraz on keyboards. Moraz had replaced the original keyboardist Mike Pinder, who left the band shortly after completion of their previous album Octave for personal reasons. Moraz was hired to take Pinder's place in time for the Moody Blues' 1979 Octave World Tour. After the tour, Moraz was then retained as a permanent member of the band, and he recorded with them until 1991.
The Moody Blues were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1964, initially consisting of keyboardist Mike Pinder, multi-instrumentalist Ray Thomas, guitarist Denny Laine, drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick. The group came to prominence playing rhythm and blues. They made some changes in musicians but settled on a line-up of Pinder, Thomas, Edge, guitarist Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge, who stayed together for most of the band's "classic era" into the early 1970s. Edge was the group’s sole continuous member throughout their entire history.
The Moody Blues' most successful singles include "Go Now", "Nights in White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon", "Question", "Gemini Dream", "The Voice", "Your Wildest Dreams" and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)". The band has sold 70 million albums worldwide, which includes 18 platinum and gold LPs.
The Moody Blues' "rich symphonic sound" influenced groups such as Yes, Genesis, the Electric Light Orchestra and Deep Purple. They also helped make synthesizers and philosophy "part of the rock mainstream".
The Moody Blues are members of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. In 2013, readers of Rolling Stone voted for them as one of the ten bands that should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ultimate Classic Rock called them "perennial victims of an unaccountable snubbing" and inducted them into its own Hall of Fame in 2014.
Writing for The Guardian in 2015, Rob Chapman described the band as "psychedelia's forgotten heroes". He stated: "Despite their success, rock critics rarely took the Moody Blues seriously, a pattern that continued for the next 45 years." He also wrote: "Despite the critical disapproval, the best of the Moody Blues music between 1967 and 1970 possessed grace and beauty. Like the Beatles, they understood how pop songs worked as ensemble pieces. None of them were particularly virtuosic or showy as musicians and their music is refreshingly free of the noodling longueurs that characterized the output of their more self-indulgent contemporaries."
In December 2017, the band were announced as inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On 14 April 2018, they were inducted as part of the 2018 class. During his acceptance speech in Cleveland, Ohio, Justin Hayward said, "If you didn't know already, well we're just a bunch of British guys, but of course to us and to all British musicians, this is the home of our heroes and we all know that..." acknowledging the inspirational role of America's rock and roll icons. During the ceremony, Ray Thomas was included as a star that was lost in the past year.
