A Question of Balance is the sixth album by the Moody Blues. Released in 1970, it reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom and No. 3 in the United States.
Background The album was an attempt by the group to strip down their previously lush, psychedelic sound in order to be better able to perform the songs in concert. Guitarist Justin Hayward remembered: "...we were all convinced that we had to record an album of songs that could easily translate into effective live performances. In a way, we almost reverted to performing live in the studio, without venturing too much into the world of overdubs."Powell, Mark. Liner notes essay, 2006 A Question of Balance SACD Deluxe Edition. On another occasion, he said: "...[in] doing the A Question of Balance album...[we were] getting back to that place where we [...] could just sit around in a room and play.""094: The Moody Blues – a Question of Balance (1970)", Discord & Rhyme: An Album Podcast, 10 May 2022. https://discordpod.com/listen/094-the-moody-blues-a-question-of-balance-1970.
The album's lyrics are on a theme of asking questions and finding meaning in the world. In Hayward's words: "On the first side, we were asking ourselves the question, and on the second side, we are starting to answer it. Looking for the answers will keep us going for a long time."Norman, Tony. Interview with Justin Hayward, August 1970. The album title is from the first and last tracks on the album, "Question" and "Balance". According to drummer Graeme Edge, "We very much wanted to reflect what the title says: that maintaining yourself is a question of balance. That [time] was the start of where we were almost treated as semi-deities. It's very hard to maintain your equilibrium under those pressures."Murley, Mark. "The Making of 'A Question of Balance'", Higher & Higher, issue 33, Winter 1996.
Writing Apart from the desire to record songs with simpler arrangements, keyboardist Mike Pinder remembered the album as being more influenced by domestic life as well as global concerns: "We were all getting married and having kids. That was really the difference. We'd settled down. [...] These are all songs that we lived. They were all songs about how we can be better, the kinds of things we can leave behind and move forward. [...] ...people live in the left side of their brain. And the right side of the brain is where creativity takes place. Ingenuity, ideas, concepts — all those things come through on the right side of the brain. I've always looked at it that way, from a spiritual point of view, as opposed to a religious point of view. [...] And so the emotions were really all about love and peace and everything, but also about intelligence and about consciousness. Trying to wake people up from bad habits. Bad habits in my book are something that hurt other people, innocent people."Lindblad, Peter. "Backstage Pass: The Moody Blues and the Mellotron on the Isle of Wight", Goldmine, 17 September 2009.
Hayward has reflected on his songwriting process at the time: "I've had so many small parts of songs that I've just enjoyed playing, and it takes me a while to realize: 'This is a song. If I just work at it a bit more, I've got a whole song here.' Inspiration has to find you working, and not just toying around. So it's a question of prompting myself to actually use some of the bits I've been enjoying on the guitar and make a song out of them."Sokol, Tony. "The Day the Moody Blues Jammed with the Four Tops", Den of Geek, 13 April 2020. https://www.denofgeek.com/culture/the-day-the-moody-blues-jammed-with-the-four-tops/.
"Question", the lead track on the album, was written by Hayward as a protest song about war. The group were influenced by their experiences interacting with Americans on their concert tours, and the fear and anger about the draft during the Vietnam war. He explains, "I'd written 'Question' on the morning of the recording session. It was recorded in just a few takes. I was very aware of the anti-war movement in America which had grown thanks to the Vietnam War. It was a protest song about the state of the world, which I feel is still very relevant today." He continues, "I got very angry one night listening to the news about the war in Vietnam. The only reason to have a war to me is to do with starvation...people fighting for their lives. But just for a bit of territory, a bit of land somewhere, was stupid. In my own naïve way, I put a lot of those feelings into Question.""The Moody Blues Album Covers by Phil Travers", Music Aficionado, 18 November 2020. https://musicaficionado.blog/2020/11/18/the-moody-blues-album-covers-by-phil-travers/. He elaborates on the song's sentiment:
"Question" was arranged shortly before the recording session. Hayward had been struggling to finalize two different songs that happened to be in the same key, and decided to present the two songs as a single work. He remembers: "That was a song written under pressure. There was a Moody session set at Decca studios on a Saturday. At midnight that Friday I still didn't have anything for the session the next day. I had parts of two songs that were in the same key but were vastly different. About four o'clock in the morning I thought, 'Oh shit, all I can do is try to put them together and make them work, somehow.' I took it into the studio the next morning and I played it to the guys and they said, 'That's great!' They never even thought about it being two songs. There is a lot of social commentary in that song. I was reflecting what was happening in the college circuit that we were playing at the time."Martel, Andy. "Always Looking West: An Interview with Justin Hayward". The Moody Blues. 8 February 2013. https://www.moodybluestoday.com/always-looking-west-interview-justin-hayward/.
The lyrics of Mike Pinder's "How Is It (We Are Here)" poke fun at the concept of Fort Knox. Pinder points out the irony of damaging the environment to dig up precious metals and refine them, only to then place them right back into the ground again at depositories.
Ray Thomas's "And the Tide Rushes In" is a reflection on the impermanence of material things. It was inspired by conflict with his ex-wife. He said: "'And the Tide Rushes In' was recorded after a big argument with my ex-wife. And I say...'You keep looking for someone to tell your troubles to, I'll sit down and lend an ear yet I hear nothing new.' Just complaining, then the tide rushes in and washes my castle away."Shasho, Ray. "An Exclusive Interview with Moody Blues Legend Ray Thomas... Ironically on a ‘Tuesday Afternoon’", Classic Rock Here And Now, 30 January 2015. https://www.classicrockhereandnow.com/2015/01/an-exclusive-interview-with-moody-blues.html. He remembered producer Tony Clarke making light of the fact that the situation was productive creatively: "I remember Tony Clarke saying to her that she ought to have more rows with me because he considered it such a great song."
Graeme Edge contributed "Don't You Feel Small": "It started basically as a bit of a go about ecology, and then I saw in it [...] the way people seem to be allowing themselves to be made to feel very insignificant by establishment things." The song is sung by the band's four singers, though Edge made an attempt at singing the song during the sessions.
"Tortoise and the Hare", written by bassist John Lodge, takes direct inspiration from the fable by Aesop. He sees the song as a metaphor for the band: "It was really a sort of analogy, really, of the Moody Blues. You know, everyone else was racing away. We were just trying to say, 'If we just keep on going [with] exactly what we really believe, we're going to last and [beat out] everyone'."
Hayward's "It's Up to You" was inspired by one of his relationships; he wrote the song on his newly acquired cherry red Gibson guitar.Gleason, Paul. "Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues on His Days of Future Passed (and Present)", Rock Cellar Magazine, 2 April 2013. https://rockcellarmagazine.com/justin-hayward-interview-moody-blues-spirits-western-sky/. Pinder interpreted a broader meaning from the song, one of taking responsibility on an individual level for global problems. He explains, "'It's Up to You' is very much a starker reality that people still need to realize, that it's up to the individual to make anything better, whether it be a political vote or in conserving water or in not polluting the planet."
Pinder described "Melancholy Man" as taking a global perspective and as lamenting society's ability to address its broadest challenges. "The melancholy part of it is the melancholy for the human race and for the planet is what it's about. What was that line? 'I might not make it there with you' the famous line of Martin Luther King. [King] was very much on my mind." On another occasion, he said: "The single most incorrect interpretation of "Melancholy Man" has been that maybe it was a song about me being melancholy. I used that as a way of saying that there are different levels of melancholy, and that this was a melancholy for the whole world because of the impending breakdown of the structure in all things that we have seen happen since the song came out. What we're seeing now is just more results of what was being done then and what continues to be done by the industrial giants and governments of the world, and the greedy little cigar-smoking guys like on the album cover."
The final track, "The Balance", centres around a spoken narration. The accompanying music was originally arranged for Lodge's song "Tortoise and the Hare", which was later reworked.
Recording The album was recorded between January and June 1970 at both Wessex Sound Studios and the band's familiar Studio One at Decca studios in West Hampstead. Tony Clarke once again served as producer alongside engineer Derek Varnals. Sessions between 17 and 31 January yielded the backing tracks for "It's Up to You", "Tortoise and the Hare", "And the Tide Rushes In", "Don't You Feel Small" and "Question". "Minstrel's Song" was recorded on 10 March. Sessions from 1 to 6 June produced "Dawning is the Day", "Melancholy Man", "How Is It (We Are Here)" and "The Balance".
The sessions were very unlike the technique of recording the previous album, To Our Children's Children's Children; instead, they featured minimal overdubs and an simpler, more natural sound that the band could more readily replicate on stage. Hayward remembers: "With "Question", the song, recorded before the album, there's no double-tracking, just echo and a big old 12-string guitar. We learned to play that the old-fashioned way and just recorded it one Saturday. It was a deliberate attempt to try and pull back to something more real."Writewyattuk. A Question of Life Balance – the Justin Hayward Interview. Writewyattuk. 27 April 2018. https://writewyattuk.com/2018/04/27/a-question-of-life-balance-the-justin-hayward-interview/.
Despite the simpler production overall, the album does feature some unique studio techniques. Some of Hayward's guitar work on "Dawning is the Day" was recorded at half-speed to create a mandolin-like effect. Hayward credits the expertise of Varnals and Clarke in capturing his desired guitar sound throughout the album: "Oh, they were really superb. Derek Varnals — I have to credit him with my guitar sound in the early days. On those early records, I played acoustic and electric. He captured all of that just beautifully. I'd put the acoustic lines down first, and then we'd do the electric stuff, maybe with the other guys playing at the same time. There's a song called "It's Up to You" where he suddenly nailed it down."Mettler, Mike. Days of SQ Surpassed: The Timeless Flight of Justin Hayward and the Moody Blues | SoundBard. Accessed 30 January 2024. http://soundbard.com/days-of-sq-surpassed-the-timeless-flight-of-justin-hayward-and-the-moody-blues/.