40 Year Itch : Amid Fusions of Wonder

  On December 14, 1973 Yes released the double album Tales From Topographic Oceans, which would wind up underneath enough UK Christmas trees to knock Goodbye Yellow Brick Road out of the #1 spot.  Each of the four sides represents a class of Hindu scripture known as the Shistras ( "sacred books") which singer Jon Anderson discovered in footnotes to Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. That explains lyrics like:

Dawn of thought transferred through moments of days under searching earth
Revealing corridors of time provoking memories, disjointed but with purpose,
Craving penetrations offer links with the self instructor's sharp and tender love as we took to the air, a picture of distance.

  No doubt this album remains an all time favorite among certain fans, but many critics expressed a lack of patience with all the noodling involved in 83 minutes + of symphonic prog rock. Sounds Magazine headlined their review "Close to Boredom". Rolling Stone's Gordon Fletcher described the effort as "psychedelic doodling". Melody Maker summed up its reaction with "No".

   As for keyboard player Rick Wakeman who would depart Yes after the TFTO tour:

 “Tales From Topographic Oceans is like a woman’s padded bra, The cover looks good but when you peel off the padding there’s not a lot there.”

Could the punk revolution be far behind?

40 Year Itch : Shining, Flying, Purple Wolfhound

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Why would you buy a live album from a group that always seemed to be trying to achieve studio perfection?
Yessongs sounds ike it was recorded from outside the auditorium...like where the trucks were parked. Yet there is greatness here...but it's certainly not in the sound quality. It's how Alan White managed to learn all the drum parts in an incredibly short amount of time. Here's his story in Alan's own words;

Alan White in 1973

In his third year as a session and touring drummer Alan White shared an apartment with Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer recording engineer Eddy Offord. One night Offord invited White to stop by a sewing shop on the West End of London where he met the members of Yes.


Alan: They were actually rehearsing for Close To The Edge and they were playing and (drummer) Bill Bruford had to leave because he was going to dinner with somebody.And Eddy said "Well Alan can play the drums.Why don't you play the song (Siberian Khatru) so everybody can go through it?" So it's basically bar of 8, bar of 7 intro and I was quite used to that because of the band I was playing in so I just got into it and played it and they all kind of went "He knows how to do this stuff".

Skip ahead two to three week later: Bill Bruford has left the band to join King Crimson. Alan is finishing up a European tour with Joe Cocker when he gets a phone call.

Alan:(Jon Anderson said) "We want you to join the band. We know you can do this. Just listen to the music", and he said "This is the set list."
  He said "We've got a gig on Monday in Dallas, Texas" and I said "Are you joking? I can't learn all this stuff in that time."
   He said "We just have to go for it" so that's what I did.

Alan smack in the middle of Yes, 1973


By this time Yes had already recorded five albums including two classics, The Yes Album and Close to the Edge. Alan had his work cut out for him.



Alan: It's not like riding a bicycle like some songs.When you play songs like ( the 19 minute) "Close to the Edge" or "Tempus Fugit" from Drama, those songs are just a whole thing you have to go through. Lots of mood changes and different tempos. You just have to, over the years, get it into your head.

It always seemed a bit unfair to Alan that Yes recorded its three disc live album (Yessongs) and concert film on his first tour. But as he approaches 40 years with the band, he says he doesn't spend much time looking back.


Alan: Yes has always been a great vehicle for me to study and move forward. This is the kind of band that doesn't look at the horizon. They always try to see over it and try to create something new. And that, to me, presents a kind of challenge that I like to take on. I always like something new to go for.

40 Year Itch : A Moment's Answer To The Dream

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When I was writing "Close to the Edge" With Steve (Howe), I was reading a lot about spirituality and how it stretches across the entire world. There's a connection, like all rivers lead to the same ocean, so I thought, you know, "close to the edge, down by the river". And it's like people say "Close to the Edge" is about  disaster, but no , it's about realization! We're on this journey and the only reason we live is to find the divine. To find God from within 

   -Jon Anderson

interviewed by Sea Of Tranquility

   As previously stated just this week,  there was a time when people would set the needle down and really listen to side long symphonic rock tracks like "Close to the Edge" . To me it  sounds for the first few minutes like every idea these stellar musicians ever had got tossed into a blender. Ah! But that's just one half of one movement. Things get funky, then ethereal, then churchy and then the whole thing drives down the autobahn in a tank before crashing into a tree full of birds.

    "For You And I" is lovely. The second of its four movements, "Eclipse" was released as a single in the US and just missed cracking the Top 40. Finally there's 9 minutes of the vigorous "Siberian Khatru". I listen in awe to the bass lines of Chris Squire. ( But sometimes I get the feeling that's the whole point of Yes: "Be in awe of  us!").

This would be the last album to feature Bruford who quit Yes to join King Crimson just days before a US tour. Enter Alan White to the rescue ( see interview) who had to learn how to play these oddly tempo'd tunes. Yes would spend years trying to top Close To The Edge. The band has their moments but this, The Yes Album and Fragile are still the highlights in my opinion.