♫ Question ♫

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First released in April 1970, this song was written by Moody Blues guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward and reflected the thoughts of many young people who were questioning the war in Vietnam.  According to Hayward …

“We’d achieved great success in the United States and we were playing a lot of student venues and colleges, and the student audience was our audience. We were mixing with these people and seeing how different the problems were for them and the issues in being a member of the greatest nation on earth: the United States. How different they were from British people. 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. How that would morally be a dilemma for them and that kind of stuff. So it did really come out of that. And my own particular anger at what was happening. After a decade of peace and love, it still seemed we hadn’t made a difference in 1970. I suppose that was the theme of the song. And then the slow part of the song is really a reflection of that and not feeling defeated, but almost a quiet reflection of it, and mixing with a bit of a love song, as well.”

Question reached #2 on the charts in the UK, but only made it to #21 in the U.S.

Question
The Moody Blues

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

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?
Because the truth is hard to swallow
That’s what the war of love is for

It’s not the way that you say it
When you do those things to me
It’s more the way that you mean it
When you tell me what will be
And when you stop and think about it
You won’t believe it’s true
That all the love you’ve been giving
Has all been meant for you

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 through

Between the silence of the mountains
And the crashing of the sea
There lies a land I once lived in
And she’s waiting there for me
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 soul
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

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?
When we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?

Songwriters: Justin Hayward
Question lyrics © T.R.O. Inc.

12 thoughts on “♫ Question ♫”

  1. Luv these old classics, plz keep em coming! The song is also pensive, reflecting upon past events, experiences, ideas which codified our lives as the year comes to a close. God willing, collectively as a nation we all wake up in time to do the right thing come 2020. 4 more years of Trump would be awfully depressing, puttin’ that final nail in the coffin.

    Like

  2. I don’t remember this song being released as a single in Canada, but it was a favourite on underground radio. The Moodys changed music in the 60s with their philosophical bent, and big sound.

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  3. There’s a reason The Moody Blues have lasted so long. They’re Bloody Brilliant Fromm the ethereal Nights in White Satin to the much more solid Question and everything in between. My first album ‘In Search of the lost chord’ my favourite to listen to, Long Distance Voyager. Always musical and never less than entertaining one of the UK’s greatest gifts to the world.
    Cwtch.

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  4. I love this song. Justin Heywood at his lyrical best. Sheila and I met though the Moody Blues (long story), anyway first gift she ever bought be was the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favours.
    The lines:
    “Between the silence of the mountains
    And the crashing of the sea
    There lies a land I once lived in
    And she’s waiting there for me.”
    Really resonate for me
    And these days:
    “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 soul”….kinda the story of the ups and downs of our lives, and here we are.
    Thanks Jill

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  6. That’s a very familiar flashback, Jill. Thanks. Those were very tumultuous days. Unfortunately, I clouded my mind with alcohol to avoid the issues. Had I sobered up back then I could be writing this morning from Canada or Sweden or Norway.🙏

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