Lives in the Balance

Lives in the Balance is the eighth album by American singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, released in 1986 (see 1986 in music). It reached number 23 on The Billboard 200 chart. The title track as well as "For America" and "In the Shape of a Heart" were released as singles. The album was ranked number 88 on Rolling Stone's list of the best 100 albums of the 1980s. The album reached number 2 in Sweden.

History

Lives in the Balance was the first album by Browne where overtly political and socially critical songs dominated (three of which were about president Ronald Reagan), although it also included one of his best remembered songs about relationships, the tragic "In the Shape of a Heart", inspired by his relationship with his first wife. The radio play garnered by "For America" and "In the Shape of a Heart", and the use of "Lives in the Balance" in the show Miami Vice, gained him many new fans who later went back and discovered Browne's earlier works.

The lesser commercial success of the album, according to a Rolling Stone November 1989 article, hardly mattered to Browne: "I like this album as much as any I've ever done," Browne said. "And there's a certain comfort, a security that I have, talking about something that I feel this strongly about. And whether or not an album succeeds wildly or not, that's intact."

Lives in the Balance (song)

"Lives in the Balance" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, the title track of his 1986 album, Lives in the Balance. A live version is also found on Browne's Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1.

History

Months before the Iran-contra scandal broke in the press, according to the 1989 Rolling Stone article "The 100 Best Albums of the Eighties," Browne sang on "Lives in the Balance" of wanting "'to know who the men in the shadows are/I want to hear somebody asking them why.' After the arms-for-hostages deals hit the news, the increased public awareness of the U.S. government's covert war in Nicaragua prompted Browne to produce and pay for a video for 'Lives in the Balance' well after the album had passed its peak in terms of sales. Discussing the song at the time of the video's release, Browne said, 'I imply that the truth is kept from us on a regular basis. I flat out say the government lies. Well, these things are no longer heresy.'"

Released only as a U.S. 12" promo and as a 7" single in Germany, in 1986 the song was associated with American policies in Central America, but within the context of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the song received new life as a single in 2005 when a live version was released from Browne's Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1 album. The song, Mark Coleman says in the Rolling Stone Record Guide, "is a cutting slice of social observation," as demonstrated in the chorus:

A Question of Balance

A Question of Balance is the sixth album by The Moody Blues, released in 1970. The album was an attempt by the group to strip down their well-known lush, psychedelic sound in order to be able to better perform the songs in concert. In order to be able to play as many new songs as possible from their new album live, the group decided (temporarily) to abandon their method of heavy overdubbing for A Question of Balance.

For the first time, The Moody Blues used political strife as a basis for songwriting with the British number two hit in May 1970, "Question", which dealt with the controversy resulting from the ongoing Vietnam War.

Released in 1970, the album reached #1 in the United Kingdom and #3 in the United States. However, the group would abandon the stripped-down sounds of A Question of Balance for the lusher sounds of their next two albums, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Seventh Sojourn.

In March 2006 the album was remastered into SACD format and repackaged with six extra tracks.

List of Roswell episodes

This is an episode list for the American science fiction television series Roswell, which ran between October 6, 1999 and May 14, 2002. The first two seasons aired on The WB, and the third season aired on UPN. There are a total of 61 episodes. The series follows the lives of teenage aliens, survivors of the 1947 UFO crash, hiding in plain sight as humans in Roswell, New Mexico.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1999–2000)

Season 2 (2000–01)

Season 3 (2001–02)

References

External links

In the Balance

In the Balance is a BBC Radio 4 black comedy written by Mark Tavener. It is the sequel to In the Red, a book, radio and television series, also by Tavener. The producer was Paul Schlesinger. The cast, headed by Michael Williams and Barry Foster, also included such actors as Geoffrey Whitehead and Robert Bathurst.

The series was, like its predecessor, based around the character George Cragge, a BBC Radio Crime correspondent. The plot involves Cragge and his friend, Superintendent Frank Jefferson, attempting to solve a series of murders during the world cup; the English football squad and the government itself become entangled up in the mystery.

The series was first broadcast in February and March 1997, but it has been repeated since on BBC 7, and its successor station BBC Radio 4 Extra. The main characters reprised their roles in In the Chair and In the End.

External Links and References