| Yes – Awaken Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Just in case that anybody still looks in here once in a while, there is a really beautiful new version, sung by Jon with a symphonic orchestra and a big choir in Island on Youtube: search for "Awaken" - Jon Anderson & Todmobile 2013"... It has been posted by (apparently) Jon Anderson himself, and the version is extremely well performed and even better sung, with lots of grandeur (always at the verge of a tiny little bit too much, but that's just what his music is about :-) anyway a great recent occasion to send shivers down every Yes fan's spine. Like mine :-) |
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| Yes – Close to the Edge Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[heartofthesun:5094] Well, your post is not 10 years old, hahaha, but I could have written it exactly the same way. YES are generally placed next to King Crimson, Genesis, ELP etc. and yet for me they stand out like a giant mountain in the middle of the other bands. As you write, what they have musically achieved in a few years (from let's say the YES Album to Tales of Topographic Oceans, thus in 4 years or so) is just plain incredible. Mastership is a small word, specially when seen in the rock music context. There is lots of other pop music I really like, but none of it comes even close to those 3 or 4 classic albums YES created in almost no time. I saw them in 2002 for the first time (more than 20 years after having started to like them), and they were absolutely brilliant!, specially Jon.... Actually, mailing JON is a good idea, I'll just not ask him about the lyrics, just give him a feedback... |
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| Yes – The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn) Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Huhh.. Maybe the YES tune that had the strongest impact on me. Deep, mysterious, beautiful, complex and yet organic, and so much more. I agree (to some critics) that the project of that double album was a bit "over the edge", that that kind of story about the "evolution of mankind" was a bit too much for an album, but I never really cared about the lyrics, except for them generally having that spiritual, uplifting vibe... What's absolutely amazing about this track (just as for most YES classics) is the whole organic "something made of music + voice + words". I always felt that every incredible guitar cord and keyboard phrase is so well placed in terms of sound (the way the guitar chords are differently played each time, don't find the right words to express what I hear...), so epic, beautiful, it is certainly also a question of personally being "tuned" in the same way as the musicians... No wonder lots of people just HATE that sound and think it to be "artsy" For me it is just a fu****ing masterpiece of art, period. |
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| Yes – Wonderous Stories Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Nice to read the interpretations and opinions of everybody in about the songs of YES. For me, and although I generally listen to other music meanwhile, YES has been since the late 70ies, until now, the pinnacle of modern rock music, although they transcend the musical genres by far (IMO). I have only seen them once in 2003, and they were far better than I had expected, almost better than in their younger years... Jon and his lyrics have always been a mixture of associative style, religious/ spiritual ideas... I remember having read an interview with him where he stated that his lyrics (in that case it was "Siberian Kathru") followed, for a big part, the sound and associative potential of the words, with no precise meaning. Which is a lot what modern poetry can be. I prefer that widely to political or critical "messages" in music, although the mainstream of listeners and specially critics favor "criticism" in music. Yawn... As for "wonderous stories" although being on an album that does not belong to the series of great classics of the band, has an incredibly beautiful and subtle vibe: an incredibly well done balance of simplicity and "song-likeness" on one hand but at the same time an almost unwordly "lightness" on the other, joyful and uplifting, expanding, spiritual, as almost anything YES ever did (at least in the 70ies).... In it's simplicity, I like it more than the more massive "Awaken" on the same album or the other songs that I do not appreciate as much.... As for the lyrics, I am not sure if it's necessary to translate them 1:1 into a story or message, although some of the elements have been told already here... Anyway, great fun to read about YES music, and what it means to people. I still adore their music... |
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