This song is about Timothy Leary, who is mentioned several times in the lyrics, although the title is not. Leary is a counter-culture icon who was a proponent ot the therapeutic effects of LSD.
The song features a flute solo by Ray Thomas, lasting about two minutes in the middle.
Mike Pinder plays the mellotron on the track. It's been said that The Moody Blues invented "symphonic rock" with their discovery and adoption of the somewhat "cosmic" instrument. "If we hadn't discovered the mellotron, nobody else would have," Justin Hayward told Q magazine in 1990. "It was a very temperamental instrument. It was always going wrong. It weighed a ton. We only had one roadie and it would take all of us to carry it into a gig. We used to sleep on it because it was the biggest thing in our transit. There used to be fights to see who would sleep on it."
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