Love comes to you and you follow
Lose one on to the heart of the sunrise
Sharp distance
How can the wind with its arms
All around me

Lost on a wave then after
Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise
Sharp distance
How can the wind with so many around me
Lost in the city

Lost in their eyes as you hurry by
Counting the broken ties they decide
Love comes to you then after
Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise
Lost on a wave but you're dreaming
Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise
Sharp distance
How can the wind with its arms all around me
Sharp distance
How can the wind with so many around me
I feel lost in the city

Lost in their eyes as you hurry by
Counting the broken ties they decided

Straight light moving and removing
Sharpness of the color sun shine
Straight light searching all the meanings of the song
Long last treatment of the telling that
Relates to all the words sung
Dreamer easy in the chair that really fits you

Love comes to you then after
Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise
Sharp distance
How can the wind with its arms all around me
Sharp distance
How can the wind with so many around me
I feel lost in the city


Lyrics submitted by JohnnyDakota, edited by hwTurner

Heart of the Sunrise song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

25 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +7
    General Comment

    This song is an absolutely gorgeous piece of art. The lyrics are all impressionistic, except for the section including the line "dreamer easy in the chair that really fits you", which basically is saying the rest of the lyrics are impressionistic.

    Other than that, the title of the song definitely suggests a topic: Sunrise.

    I was on a long drive home in the countryside one evening, listening to this song, and the topic - sunrise, really caught my attention. There were moments in my life when I happened to observe the earth is a miniscule body in the universe, and I'm just a flea living on the earth, in a universe much larger than I can imagine... And during the sunrise, the reality of our miniscule body dissapears in favor of an illusion that our earth, and the world of men, is vast. The sun is the giver of this life to us. The Sun was a reccurring topic in many Yes songs..

    The sunrise is a mind altering experience... at at least, the first time you realize the depth of the song's meaning.

    Again, it's impressionist... Arguably the best song of Yes. I get the impression that this song had an effect on them as a group - having written it. The lyrics on following albums very impressionistic..

    The way they wrote songs was simply more meaningful, beautiful, powerful than other bands of less talent (and we need to thank the LSD community for providing the financial support to make it possible!) Heart of the Sunrise was the true sign, I think, that they had the rare ability to successfully complete these massive compositions.

    How could you take any piece of that 11 minutes away... It's all so beautiful.

    lyricstudenton March 12, 2005   Link
  • +6
    General Comment

    1973 I skipped my sister's wedding party and listened to the Fragile album cranked up as high as the speakers would go. I believe it was this song that sent chills down my spine and brought tears to my eyes. Obviously powerful since I remember that experience over 30 years later. I'm sure my emotions were close to the surface due to the fact that my sister was leaving our family to go live with that hippy.

    norderon April 12, 2007   Link
  • +6
    General Comment

    In the beginning you can be whomever you want and all pursue all of your dreams. Ithe [your] heart of the sunrise]. Society tries to hold you back and conform you to their standards [How can the wind with it arms all around you & lost in the city]. Like a reverse prism, society narrows all spectrum of light (possibilities) to one standard straight line [Straight light moving and removing Sharpness of the colour sun shine]. If you don’t resist, your individuals dreams will never be realized. [You count the broken ties they decided].

    However, in the end, only we can determine what these lyrics (life) mean to us. [Straight light searching all the meanings Of the song & Long last treatment of the telling that Relates to all the words sung] Inevitably we aspire to our own desires or comfort level and choose the path best for us. [Dreamer easy in the chair that really fits You].

    All sung with an incredible back drop of varied musical interludes typifying the myriad of possibilities over a lifetime.

    Sophiston June 01, 2013   Link
  • +1
    Memory

    This was the first song I've ever listened from Yes (and from any prog rock band other than Pink Floyd). It happened at my friend's place, four years ago. I was 14 at the time. I was visiting for the weekend and I was left alone in the house. I had nothing to do, so I was checking up the CD collection of my friend's parents', when I came across the intriguing art of Roger Dean cover for Classic Yes. I've never had any contact with Mr. Dean's work either and I thought "wow, this guy painted something that is so alien and at the same time so real, it's like a real place that could never exist". And then I put the CD on to play. There are no words for what took place in my soul. One thing I can describe: I could not quite believe that the music I was hearing could be really happening. I had no idea music could sound that way. And while I wept, not only in joy, but from what felt like a maelstorm of light and gravity pulling strong inside my own self, something beyond anything I've ever felt to that day or since, I kept looking at the strange and familiar painting and I knew that what I was listening was the music that came from that same world. The song wasn't meant to speak of things of our world, but about that other one. Both painting and song together fromed something like a small crack in reality from which I could peek into something vastly more wonderful. And I kept restarting the song every time it ended, for hours and hours, staring at the painting, devouring each detail of it, and listening to the every new little note I could discover in the song, as if each one was a another revelation of that wonderful alternate reality that I was trying to unveil, but could only catch glimpses. I did so until it was evening, without even realizing I could have pressed the repeat button.

    Isabela96on March 28, 2014   Link
  • +1
    Song Comparison

    Anyone else reckon those sudden guitar parts could have influenced Rush's 'The Necromancer'?

    Mr. Swung 14/8on May 03, 2018   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Wow, no ones wrote comments about this song... its great, one of my favorites by them...

    BleedngBlakon January 27, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    It's about meditation. Some of the lyrics here are wrong.

    Beach Bumon February 25, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    This song feels like a trip... almost a dream, switching structural elements around a common theme but placing them so they dont up-end the song too much.

    I also agree that some of the lyrics here are wrong.

    osberton May 19, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I live in a rural area, so when i started toi go to school in the city, i would come home feeling very stressed out. i like to play this song, close my eyes, and just listen to it. here is what it means to me:
    "How can the wind with its arms all around me" is the peace and security in Nature. it's amost like the wind is a protecting force.
    "How can the wind with so any around me I feel lost in the city" is the detachment I feel when i'm in the city. the wind is ineffective as a protecting force, instead i'm lost in the crowd.
    "Dreamer easy in the chair that really fits you" is basically inviting the listener to come on a musical journey.

    anyways, that's how the song makes me feel, it is very relaxing and peaceful. i like sunrises.

    findsomepeaceon July 05, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    All the metal fans out there need to realize that Yes and King Crimson were vital in the creation of metal, and were notably better at it than most metal bands. I have never heard as beautiful a song with metal elements than this, and I have never heard more intelligent heaviness than Crimson's Larks' Tongue In Aspic Part 1.

    I was playing this for my dad a while back, having told him about the solo projects on the album, and he asked, after hearing the intro, whether this was the drummer's solo piece.

    Anyway, I'm not quite sure what this song is about, perhaps relaxation or something else like that. A great song, perhaps my favorite Yes, though the competition with Roundabout, South Side of the Sky, Close to the Edge, And You And I, and Gates of Delirium is certainly tough.

    inpraiseoffollyon January 04, 2007   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Holiday
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday". I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Album art
Magical
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Album art
Blue
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Album art
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it. “I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Album art
Trouble Breathing
Alkaline Trio
While the obvious connections with suicide or alcoholism could be drawn easily, more subtly this song could be about someone who views the world through a negative lens constantly and how as much as the writer tries to show the beauty in the world, this person refuses to see it. It's one or another between the rope and the bottle. There is no good option for this person. They can't see it. Skiba sings it in a kind of exasperated way like He's tired of hearing this negative view constantly and just allowing that person to continue feeling the way they feel knowing he can't do anything about it. You can hear it when he says maybe you're a vampire.