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." 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."

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." 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."

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."

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."

"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 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."

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. 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." 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."

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's and Pinder's guitar work on "Melancholy Man" reminded producer Clarke of the type of music that would appear on a French film soundtrack, and he leaned into that feeling during the song's production, limiting the use of echo on the track. Appropriately, the song subsequently became a number one hit in France, and received heavy airplay in the era surrounding the death of Charles DeGaulle.

Travers originally included a small painting of John Blashford-Snell in the cover collage. The image was of Snell wearing a pith helmet, holding a pistol and pointing it at an elephant. After the album was released, Snell sued Decca Records and the band over the image, saying it was "a source of constant embarrassment over being on the cover". Travers, with the direction of Decca, changed the image of Snell to that of a man without a pith helmet holding the pistol.

The collage of pictures of the band in the centre of the album's gate-fold was produced by projecting several images onto a single screen. According to Clarke, this method was a creative solution when it was discovered that the preferred method of printing a collage of several individual pictures would have added several weeks of production time.

  • Producer - Tony Clarke
  • Engineers - Derek Varnals, Adrian Martins, Robin Thompson
  • Cover Painting - Phil Travers
  • All Photos - David Rohl
  • Photo Montage - Mike Goss, David Rohl

Charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|-

! scope="col"| Chart (1970–1971)

! scope="col"| Peak<br /> position

|-

! scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)

| align="center"| 2

|-

|-

! scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)

|align="center"|7

|-

|-

! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)

| align="center"| 9

|-

! scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)

| align="center"| 7

|-

|-

|-

|}

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|-

! scope="col"| Chart (1975)

! scope="col"| Peak<br /> position

|-

! scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)

|align="center"|17

|}

Certifications

References

  • "A Question Of Balance" at discogs