It begins, as so many things do, with a question disguised as a statement.
“Truth becomes fake and people don’t know just what is at stake.”
Harry Kappen doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. In “Balance,” the Netherlands-born singer-songwriter—now living in Mexico—steps into the storm of modern discourse not with outrage, but with something far more unsettling: calm.
And that calm… demands attention.
Because this is a song about division. About the widening distance between people who once might have met somewhere in the middle. Left and right. Black and white. Strong and weak. The lines are drawn. The voices are louder than ever. And yet, Kappen stands there, almost still, asking if anyone remembers the space in between.
Musically, “Balance” unfolds with a quiet confidence. The guitars shimmer rather than shout. The rhythm moves forward steadily, like a heartbeat that refuses to race, even when the world around it is spinning faster by the minute. There’s no dramatic flourish here, no explosive chorus designed to overwhelm. Instead, there’s restraint. And in that restraint… something powerful.
Kappen’s voice carries the weight of someone who has seen more than one side of the story. Perhaps that comes from his journey—leaving Europe behind, crossing an ocean, beginning again in Mexico. Or perhaps it comes from his years as a music therapist, listening to the struggles of others, learning how fragile—and how complicated—people can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgNjWZKuJA0
Whatever the source, it’s there in every line.
“We’ll find a balance between black and white / debating the grey and the future is bright.”
It sounds simple. Almost too simple. But simplicity, as it turns out, can be deceptive. Because what Kappen is really asking… is whether we are still capable of listening. Of considering. Of pausing long enough to recognize that the truth may not belong entirely to one side or the other.
And that… is where the tension lives.
“Balance” doesn’t offer solutions. It doesn’t tie things up neatly. Instead, it lingers in that uncomfortable space where certainty begins to unravel. Where the easy answers fade, and something more complicated—more human—takes their place.
There’s a subtle urgency beneath it all. Not panic. Not anger. But concern. The kind that builds slowly, quietly, until you realize it’s been there all along.
By the time the song ends, nothing has been resolved. The divisions remain. The questions still hang in the air.
But something has shifted.
Because in a world that often rewards the loudest voice, Harry Kappen has chosen a different approach. He speaks softly. He chooses his words carefully. And in doing so, he creates something that feels… almost rare.
A moment of reflection.
A pause in the noise.
A reminder that sometimes, the most powerful thing a song can do… is simply ask us to think.
–Kevin Morris