Uma Questão de Balanço

Original Released as LP THRESHOLD TH3 (stereo)
(UK, August 1970)

A1. Question 5’43
A2. How Is It (We Are Here) 2’44
A3. And The Tide Rushes In 2’57
A4. Don’t You Feel Small 2’37
A5. Tortoise And The Hare 3’22
B1. It’s Up To You 3’11
B2. Minstrel’s Song 4’27
B3. Dawning Is The Day 4’21
B4. Melancholy Man 5’45
B5. The Balance 3’28
C1. Mike's Number One (bonus track) 3'33
C2. Question (alternate version) (bonus track) 6'06
C3. Minstrel's Song (original mix) (bonus track) 4'34
C4. It's Up to You (original mix) (bonus track) 3'19
C5. Don't You Feel Small (original mix) (bonus track) 3'01
C6. Dawning is the Day (full original mix) (bonus track) 4'38

All instruments played by The Moody Blues:

Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder, John Lodge,

Ray Thomas and Graeme Edge

Producer: Tony Clark

Engineers: Derek Varnals/Adrian Martins/Robin Thompson

Cover Painting: Phil Travers

Highest UK chart position: 1

Highest US chart position: 3

"When all the stars are falling down..."

"A Question of Balance" is the fifth album of a classical series comprising 7 albums recorded and released by the Moody Blues between 1967 and 1972; this series is sometimes called 'core 7' or 'classical 7'. It was Moodies' first album to reach the Top 5 on both sides of the Atlantic and swapped the complexities of their earlier LPs, for a more straight-ahead approach. It was also preceded by one of the band's best-selling singles, "Question", released in a shorter version. Here, opening the album, "Question" is presented in its full astonishing lenght, being a perfect example of a short prog-song must be.

With the turn of a new decade and the close of the psychedelic sixties, the Moody Blues realized that the psychedelic spirit that defined their preceding three LPs, which thrived on maximum studio experimentation (e.g., heavy layering of tracks with myriad instruments, electronic effects), had resulted in albums that were not easily translatable to live performance. So, they pared back accordingly with their fifth album, "A Question of Balance", which bassist Jon Lodge would describe as «like a move from marijuana to alcohol!» The intent of Balance was to produce an album that could be playable on stage no problemo, and from here until their initial dissolution with 1972's "Seventh Sojourn", they would put away the sitars and harps and keep the overdubs to a manageable minimum.

This album is perhaps the best example of the all round, all pervading sound of the Moody Blues from its climactic start to the final note. The Moodies gained the reputation of building a distinctive ‘orchestral’ wall of sound. The tracks tend to run one into the next. The opening of the next track is usually subdued and gives a (temporary) feeling of anti-climax but it too develops into its logical and majestic conclusion. The original vinyl album came in a folding sleeve that opened out to make a long poster. The pop art scene painted by Phil Travers (who produced most of the early artwork for Moody Blues albums) shows people in deckchairs sitting on a beach looking up at dramatic and conflicting images in the sky (Einstein, rockets, elephants, storm clouds and guns). The lyrics are inside the zip file; and the album is also presented with no space between songs: Side A and Side B, like we used to hear it in the good old days.