QUESTION

(The first review.) 'Question' is an outtake from 1970's Question Of Balance album, a prog-rocker by Justin Hayward. By the way, FISH's cover album Songs From The Mirror has it, sadly I haven't heard that version... It's a highlight - one of the many - of the album, and I'd probably place it among my Top Ten of MB songs (which is a huge praise since I really love so many of their songs). The composition is a fine combination of very lively, hasty parts and slower, majestic sections. The former contains some of the fastest acoustic guitar playing I know and the latter features Hayward at his very best as a singer, as well as one of the most gorgeous melodies they ever recorded. This song was an obvious choice for a single; another one was Mike Pinder's 'Melancholy Man'.

A bit surprising that both singles seem to have 'Candle of Life' on their flipsides. A great, relatively slow, moody song from their previous album To Our Children's Children's Children (1969), written by John Lodge (I hope my memory is right...). His compositions were not always as good as Hayward's - or Pinder's -, but this one is among his best. It has a sad and romantic "candle-lit" atmosphere.

For a principle I don't give full rates for a single, but (as I once said about VDGG's 'Refugees' too) this could be on my Top 10 of singles, if I ever had such list.