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
[sic].'" 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: :
There are lives in the balance :
There are people under fire :
There are children at the cannons :
And there is blood on the wire. Jimmy Guterman, in his 1986
Rolling Stone review of the
Lives in the Balance album, wrote approvingly of the lyrics of the song: "For Browne, our crimes in Central America are the clearest example of the wrongheadedness of U.S. foreign policy. 'Who are the ones that we call our friends?' Browne asks on the scathingly trenchant 'Lives in the Balance' and sadly answers himself: 'Governments killing their own.'" The song includes musical support, as Guterman noted, from members of
Sangre Machehual, a Los Angeles
Nueva Canción group. The band thought it was a prank when Browne called them up and asked them if they would play on the album, according to member Hugo Pedroza. Pedroza plays
charango and
tiple,
Jorge Strunz plays
nylon string guitar, and Quique Cruz plays
zampoña. Percussionist Deborah Dobkin and actress
Mindy Sterling provide harmony vocals. ==Personnel==