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South Side of the Sky Lyrics
A river a mountain to be crossed
The sunshine in mountains sometimes lost
Around the south side, so cold that we cried
Were we ever colder on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
Move forward was my friend's only cry
In deeper to somewhere we could lie
And rest for the day, with cold in the way
Were we ever colder on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
The moments seemed lost in all the noise
A snow storm, a stimulating voice
Of warmth of the sky, of warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
The sunshine in mountains sometimes lost
The river can disregard the cost
And melt in the sky, the warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
The sunshine in mountains sometimes lost
Around the south side, so cold that we cried
Were we ever colder on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
In deeper to somewhere we could lie
And rest for the day, with cold in the way
Were we ever colder on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
A snow storm, a stimulating voice
Of warmth of the sky, of warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
The river can disregard the cost
And melt in the sky, the warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day, a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity
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This is a very good song, and I'm amazed that nobody has commented on it yet. It describes an Arctic/Antarctic expedition that ends with all the members freezing to death. This is a very good showcase of Steve Howe's electric guitar chops; the fills that he plays are amazing.
@orion720 I believe that this song could be about an Antarctic expedition gone terribly wrong. I can also see this song as being about the Donner party and the horrors that were endured by them. Either way, excellent song.
@orion720 I believe that this song could be about an Antarctic expedition gone terribly wrong. I can also see this song as being about the Donner party and the horrors that were endured by them. Either way, excellent song.
This song makes me feel cold. So well done, especially the piercing keyboard in the background.
yeah, funny, hardly anyone noticed this song...
anyway, one of my fav yes songs, one of my alltime favs too. love the melody, love the drums (the DRUMS!!! Mr .Bruford couldnt play that better), love the guitars (Squire/Howe/Wakeman), love the transitions between "moods" here, Mr. Anderson's voice... it all fits so perfectly together, all so well balanced. theres so much music in it...
@Lester Indeed, it's a very good song & one of my faves by YES.
@Lester Indeed, it's a very good song & one of my faves by YES.
I heard in an interview, Jon Anderson say that the song was about death. That's all he mentioned. His lyrics are very special to me because he puts references to spiritual texts in his works. I feel that he might have been reading The Tibetan Book Of The Dead at some point, because the bardo state after death is said to be like the feeling of heat and cold raining upon your head equally. It's also a state that those who have experienced Kundalini describe as an affect. It's a powerful song.
Jon Anderson intro'ed this song during a concert in 2003 as "This is a song about mountain climbing, which is very dangerous.... in life.....we all have mountains to cross". Gotta love Yes, I agree their lyrics are a little cosmic, but to say they are put together for music value and sound only is wrong. Many interviews with Anderson would indicate differently....
This song & indeed the whole album is just phenomenal! Anderson's vocals, Squire's incredible bassmanship, the writing & Howe's brilliant guitar riffs are all immortal.
This song is about Apollo 13. A million miles away. the coldness of space. The mountains of the moon that we don't see on the dark side. A snow storm, a stimulating voice. The crackling voice of mission control through the white noise. The desperation of the what the mission became. They could all die.
@Beach Bum Hate to tell ya man but we never went to the moon, the Apollo missions were all hoaxed. I invite you to watch, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MOON by Bart Sibrel or research it on an alternative browser as Google & other mainstream browsers will "toe the line" & regurgitate the official narrative. There are numerous books & documentaries about this, on Facebook we have a page, Apollo Moon Hoax.
@Beach Bum Hate to tell ya man but we never went to the moon, the Apollo missions were all hoaxed. I invite you to watch, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MOON by Bart Sibrel or research it on an alternative browser as Google & other mainstream browsers will "toe the line" & regurgitate the official narrative. There are numerous books & documentaries about this, on Facebook we have a page, Apollo Moon Hoax.
I haven't read anything to verify or disprove what you have said above..
The image I had (before reading you all's) was like on that movie "Alive" with the soccer players, when their plane crashes in the mountains somewhere, and they end up having to eat the dead.. But some survive in the end...
The "lala" part of this song is wierd - but freaking awesome -- the piano and drums are so fucking awesome too in this part -- especially when you are picturing that it's a daydream of someone who is barely concious in subzero temperatures...
Then that fucking awesome machine sound comes in.. starts quitely.. gets louder.... and the reality of the subzero temperatures - empending death!! - wakes you out of that utopian hallucination! The only way to die is to die hard and like a man.
I too am surprised that this song is not mentioned often among Yes fans --- I don't think they even play it in concert.. But I'm not much for the "popular" Yes songs... So I think this song is way more important than "Roundabout", but on the other hand, not as important as "Heart of The Sunrise"...
About Bruford: when you listen to Alan White on Relayer, you see that Yes didn't really miss Bruford (white does fucking awesome on that album)..
But a lot of credit still should go to Bruford on fragile (I wasn't as impressed on the Edge)...
When I listen closely to the drum compositions on South Side, Long Distance Runaround, and Sunrise, I am so amazed at how clever -- and simply beautiful his drumming was.. Clearly Bruford was integral on fragile, but on the Edge, something is missing, and it makes sense to me that he departed at that point.
Sure, it's a really great song and the lyrics are more straightforward than most Anderson scrawlings. The first time I heasr it I thought of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic in 1914-16; they wanted to cross the continent through hundreds of miles of almost completely uncharted ice (an almost desperate idea!). The ship froze in about thirty miles from the coast, and they drifted, locked in the ice, had to abandon ship and drag everything in sleds and open boats...really far out, but Shackleton was an inspiring leader and no one died though the odds against them were immeasurable.
The way they explore different moods here - the "hallucination" section! - is just amazing, and so is the musicianship. One reason why it's rather unknown even with hardcore Yes fans is that the band have hardly ever perfomed it live, once Bill Bruford left the year after the album, It's very much in his style of drumming - jazzy, ultra-syncopated, lots of phased beats and empty spaces.
This is also one of my all time favourite tracks. As with all of Yes's work, it is beautifully composed and played. About 15 years ago I was doing a basic media course and created a video to go with this song that was shot on Irish hilltops in the dead of winter. We used some shots of turbine blades on a windfarm that went perfectly with the bit in the middle (before the brilliant drum roll).
The song always made me think of a party of refugees tyring to escape some terrible atrocity and taking a desperate flight over snowfields. The leader (maybe father) tries to keep everyone moving, but it is becoming pointless as they succumb to the harsh conditions.
That's what the video was supposed to evoke, but it wasn't very good!