Gator Springs Gazette


		GATOR SPRINGS GAZETTE a literary journal of the fictional persuasion

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

(page two)

BALANCING ACT
Carrie Berry

This issue marks the beginning of what I hope will be a great year for Gator Springs Gazette and Fandango Virtual. Looking back on last year, I am struck by the aptness of this issue's title: A QUESTION OF BALANCE.

Thereafter followed a fairly boring editorial about the resources available on the site and the advantages of subscribing, none of which are currently relevant. Instead I will talk about the inspiration for the title, a favorite album by the Moody Blues that I have listened to many times since it was released in 1970.

The creation of the album is a good metaphor for how the GSG issues evolved. In this case, the album title comes from the opening and closing tracks. The first, originally called Question of Balance but shortened to Question, is really two songs that happened to be in the same key.

In this interview, Justin Hayward talks about how the first track Question was arranged shortly before the recording session. 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 first song was a war protest with a rock vibe. The second song was reflecting on a relationship and the melody takes a very different tone; a ballad. I always preferred listening to the second part, but part of what made it work was the harsher tone of the first. The balance made it work.

It's not the way that you say it when you do those things to me It's more the way you really mean it when you tell me what will be

The final track, "The Balance" sets a Graeme Edge poem to music that closes with these words:

Just open your mind
And you will find
The way it's always been

Just open your heart
And that's a start

The stories and poems of A QUESTION OF BALANCE - 1/2005 hang in that precarious balance between darkness and light, stability and instability, order and chaos. We also have an editorial by Bob Arter and a column by Gabriel Orgrease. The book review will be added to the rest at Bonfire. We hope the Gazette reading experience will bring a little balance to your own life.

Enjoy!

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