Close to the Edge

Even before I knew the actual lyrics to this song, the way it builds up to the part that goes "I get up, I get down" almost brings a tear of joy to my eye every freakin' time just because of the emotional and musical set-up. In terms of musical technical ability and lyrics and emotion, Yes is probably the best band I've ever heard. This song is pure genius in every aspect through and through; almost all of their songs are. This song is 18 minutes long and I couldn't find a spot where I wanted to stop listening.

IV. Seasons Of Man

The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes. A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man, so it seems. And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love. As song and chance develop time, lost social temperance rules above. Ah, ah.

Then according to the man who showed his outstretched arm to space, He turned around and pointed, revealing all the human race. I shook my head and smiled a whisper, knowing all about the place.

On the hill we viewed the silence of the valley, Called to witness cycles only of the past. And we reach all this with movements in between the said remark.

INTERPRETATION

These climactic concluding verses are, for me, among the most philosophically profound in all modern music.

The first verse alludes to mundane life punctuated by transcendent moments, the life each of us actually lives. “The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes.” The “notes” are the instances of insight and understanding, but they are flanked before and after by mundane “time,” the daily grind of our lives. Yet how else could such moments stand out as profound? This is the genius of life itself, made up long intervals of the mundane followed by moments of rapture and insight, immanence and transcendence. This movement is mirrored by the movement of the Yes’s music itself, right here in CTTE: strong, ecstatic “notes” that jump out, sometimes astonishingly, from varying tempos of melody. Only with such variation can the song paint the beautiful picture it does, as it “relates the color to scenes.” What emerges is an authentic reproduction of the spiritual tempo of life itself

“A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man so it seems.” What a resonating line! If life were a series of triumphant moments, rather than the interweaving of happiness and sadness, insight and confusion, confidence and insecurity (“I get up, I get down . . .”) that it actually is, we would be “dislocated” from what is meaningful and important, caught up in false, this-worldly values, whatever is in “vogue.” As an ironic side-note, I think Yes itself later became “dislocated” from the genius of CTTE, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Relayer, producing relatively shallow and tin-pan material that recalls the warning of this great line from CTTE. “The Ladder” seems shallow to me in this sense, notwithstanding all the hullaballoo surrounding its release. By I digress . . . .

“And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love.” Wow. What a powerful vision of what love is, what function it serves. We go through life searching for meaning, trying to get things in focus, but, again, those moments of insight are few and far between. It is when we’re in confusion, unclear about what it all means, that we truly understand and experience the importance of love, of compassion. When we are weak, confused, depressed, uncertain, vulnerable — that’s when the love of others means more to us than anything. And it goes both ways: by giving love to others in their time of need, we experience spiritual meaning even during times of uncertainty and darkness. Love makes the “space between the focus shape” not only endurable, but profoundly meaningful and important.

“As song and chance develop time loss social temperance rules above.” This is a wide-eyed, sober view of the social oppression true artists and dreams must expect in this life. Pursuit of meaning through the course of the mundane puts the dreamer/artist at odds with social expectations. From society’s viewpoint, art is a waste of time, and the artist is a threat to the social order. This line makes me think of a disturbing passage in Plato’s “Republic,” where Socrates himself disavows the role of the artist in the well-ordered republic. Jon Anderson seems to be acknowledging the same fundamental tension, the awareness that the path of truth and beauty is one that attracts society’s wrath. It is the way of the cross (“I crucified my hate and held the word within my hand/ There’s you, the time, the logic or the reasons we don’t understand”).

That next few lines are more straight-forward: “Then according to the man who showed his outstretched arm to space/ He turned around and pointed, revealing all the human race/ I shook my head and smiled a whisper, knowing all about the place.” Every sage arrives at the same destination, realizing that the spiritual path is the one all of are on, whether we realize it or not. Anderson humbly acknowledges that he has discovered the same thing. That “outstretched arm to space” again reminds me of the crucifixion. And the whole lyric here reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickinson “Better than music, for I who heard it,” about the ecstatic vision, which she analogizes to the most exquisite music, and ends her poem: “Let me not spill its smallest cadence/ Humming, for promise, when alone/ Humming, until my faint rehearsal/ Drop into tune around the throne.”

Then the final ascendant verse: “On a hill we viewed the silence of the valley/ Called to witness cycles only of the past/ And we reach all this with movements in between the said remark.” What a powerful summing-up of the description of the spiritual journey that came before! The ultimate revelation is simply making final sense of life’s entire journey, pitfalls and all. All that has come before is revealed as prelude for where it all leads, where we all end up. And, again, there’s the mystic’s speechlessness, the paradox of “the said remark” — the song lyrics themselves — as having been arrived at through “movements” through silence, “the time between the notes,” etc. Incredible insight here. Again I think of Dickinson: “It is the ultimate of talk/ The impotence to tell.”

As you can tell, this amazing song, CTTE, and especially these last verses, have held powerful meaning for me for over three decades. When I hear people say they think the lyrics are meaningless, I can’t help but “shake my head and smile a whisper, knowing all about the place.” For me, the song maps out the journey my life actually seems to be on. And the way it ends fills me with incredible hope and wonder.

I continue to play this song occasionally, as I did in 1976, and it never fails to send chills up my spine. I consider this to be the greatest single piece of music in the Rock genre ever written. Bar none. It transcends rockand roll. In fact, for the genre, it is worthy of being put into the same category as some of the best pieces by the Classical masters. Awaken is similar in its greatness. Given the fact that these guys were in their 20s when they put masterpieces like this together is just mind-blowing. There have been times when I was tempted to email Jon Anderson to ask him about the meanings, but I think that would ruin it for me. The lyrics allow me to relate at a personal level. At different times in my life different lines and movements have jumped out at me. From lyrics to song, this is the ultimate piece of music for me. It's going on 30 years and nothing has yet surpassed.

One of the greatest songs I have ever heard. It is epic in every sense...Takes you on a journey. A fucking rollercoaster of highs and lows. Ending with the ultimate of highs..

I. The Solid Time Of Change

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace, And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace, And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar, Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.

INTERPRETATION:

Every seeker of truth on the journey through life needs a guru or spiritual teacher, "a seasoned witch" who can point the way out from "the depths of your disgrace." Concrete changes in one's lifestyle -- to "rearrange your liver" (evocative of freedom from alcoholism, drug addiction, food addiction, etc.) -- must take place if one is to attain "the solid mental grace."

Yes music itself can be the guru/spiritual teacher, this profound, powerful "music that came quickly from afar," bearing the "fruits of man recorded" for us to taste as we venture toward health, wholeness, and meaning. But to be on this spiritual is to enter a timeless dimension, which our unenlightened, time-obsessed society necessarily will regard as a waste of time, a "losing all against the hour."

And assessing points to nowhere, leading ev'ry single one. A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun, And take away the plane in which we move, And choose the course you're running.

Down at the edge, round by the corner, Not right away, not right away. Close to the edge, down by a river, Not right away, not right away.

INTERPRETATION:

The soul's journey through a timeless dimension appears from the outside to be "asssessing points to nowhere," that is, directionless and goalless. Yet this beckoning toward meaningless is "leading every single one" of us, whether we are conscious of this spiritual journey or not. To the extent we become conscious of the soul's journey, we will be inspired by what might otherwise seem the smallest, most insignificant of nature's wonders, the "dewdrop" that "can exalt us like the music of the sun."

But to remain consciously on this spiritual journey, each of us must "take away the plane in which we move and choose the course you're running." That is, we must risk nonconformity, we must march to the beath of a different drummer (Bill Bruford, preferably!), we must consciously reject the temporal values of conventional society that prevent us from experiencing the depths and wonders of our own souls' journey toward truth and enlightenment.

As we do this, we will know ourselves to be outcasts, experiencing life at the margins of mainstream society, living our lives "down by the corner" and "close to the edge." We also will encounter internal resistance to such radical spirituality, a voice inside that protests "not right away, not right away."

MORE TO COME....

I just went on a Yes experience, as I used to find them the weakest of the prog giants. How foolish I was. Fragile is now one of ten masterpieces for me, and CTTE and the Yes Album are giving me good vibes. Tales unimpressed me, and Relayer I need to listen to again.

As a response to Camel Fan, they do mean something, but it would be incredibly difficult to figure it out unless you were Jon Anderson. Very spiritual, that's for sure.

The first four minutes are the best. As is the next part. And the ending of the song has a power to rival the ending of Genesis's Supper's Ready.

Yes have long been criticised (often by Yes fans) as being overblown, pretentious, even silly. Well, if pretentious, silly people can create something like CTTE, then bring them on.

CTTE is one of the most powerful, haunting, mesmerising things I have ever come across.

(In case you're wondering, I call it a 'thing' because I compare it not only to other music, but to other things of wonder, musical or not).

i bought the album a few weeks ago. i love the sound effects at the beginning. did anyone else notice how 'crufixtion' is mentioned several times on the album? i think it has to do with enlightenment by getting rid of old prejudices.

A very good song. Definitely a staple of progressive rock, along with songs by such great bands as King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, and co (I expect and Co will soon include Jethro Tull and Rush for me).

This is the ultimate music. It goes even beyond words because as Wagner said (even though I don't support at all his racist ideas): “Music starts were the power of words come to an end” (according to my translation from French...).