Perhaps the most famous instance of songwriters throwing together two unfinished songs to create a great song is when John Lennon and Paul McCartney combined two drafts of songs to create the masterpiece “A Day in the Life” that closed the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) album. But not long after that album, The Moody Blues also created a classic song when guitarist Justin Hayward combined two songs he was working on, ultimately forming the song “Question.”
The Moody Blues released “Question” as a single in 1970. And they released a new version of the song in 1989. You might not recall the song from the title, but once you hear it, you will remember it.
The Questions Portion of “Question”
“Question” contains two contrasting parts that might initially seem not to go together. The high-powered first part of the suite provides the title of the song:
Why do we never get an answer when we’re knocking at the door,
With a thousand million questions about hate and death and war?
‘Cause when we stop and look around us, there is nothing that we need,
In a world of persecution that is burning in its greed.
Hayward explained that he was inspired to write this section from Vietnam War protests. While touring in the United States, he heard young people express their concerns about the ongoing Vietnam War.
“I was just expressing my frustration around that, around the problems of anti-war and things that really concerned them, and for their own future that they may be conscripted,” Hayward noted. “How that would morally be a dilemma for them,” he thought, “After a decade of peace and love, it still seemed we hadn’t made a difference in 1970.”
The Love Song Portion of “Question”
After starting with the big questions, the song slows down into an acoustic love song:
I’m looking for someone to change my life;
I’m looking for a miracle in my life;
And if you could see what it’s done to me,
To lose the the love I knew could safely lead me through.
This section stands as a beautiful love song on its own, but it works wonderfully combined with the faster question-asking section.
Why the Two Portions of “Question” Fit Together
Amazingly, the two sections fit together beautifully, despite their origins as different songs. There is nothing inconsistent with being upset and angry about societal problems while also seeking solace in one’s personal life.
But in the grey of the morning,
My mind becomes confused;
Between the dead and the sleeping,
And the road that I must choose.
I’m looking for someone to change my life;
I’m looking for a miracle in my life;
And if you could see what it’s done to me,
To lose the love I knew could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew;
To learn as we grow old the secrets of our souls.
Dick Holler’s song “Sanctuary,” recorded live by Dion in 1971, does something similar by singing in the voice of someone seeing the turmoil of the early 1970s and the failures of the promise of the 1960s. Among those worldly problems, the singer seeks a place of peace with friends.
The Moody Blues song “Question” struck a chord with people in the U.S. and U.K when it was released on the album A Question of Balance (1970). The song became one of the most popular Moody Blues songs, going to number two in the U.K. and number twenty-one in the U.S.
Perhaps because the song is so associated with the sound of The Moody Blues, “Question” is not often covered. But the London Symphony Orchestra recorded an instrumental version in 1978, which inspired The Moody Blues to recruit that orchestra to record a new version of “Question” for their 1989 Greatest Hits album.
The song still sounds great all these years later, while remaining relevant as we try to find love and balance in our lives amidst the confusion stemming from the questions in society about hate and death and war.
As we go into a new year, wishing you peace, love, and the answers to our questions.
And that is the story behind the song. Leave your two cents in the comments.
