Members Elias Graves Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Yes is one of the most influential progressive rock groups. Their lyrics are debated as either transcendant or gibberish. Who's right? EG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tspit74 Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Gibberish. I'm a big Yes fan. But let's face it, the lyrics are silly. But they sound correct with the music. A funny songwriting challenge would be to write a Yes song. You have to work in the words: rivers, oceans, streams, love, and we. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eeglug Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Gibberish. I'm a big Yes fan. But let's face it, the lyrics are silly. But they sound correct with the music. A funny songwriting challenge would be to write a Yes song. You have to work in the words: rivers, oceans, streams, love, and we. +1. I'm a fan, to a certain extent but was a bigger fan when I was younger. They're a band that require what you might call 'suspension of disbelief', particularly where the lyrics are concerned. It's all gibberish some of which I like and some of which is just dumb. Some of it becomes almost comical when you couple it with Jon Anderson's little lost hobbit persona. Their lyrics are actually worse IMO when they try to make a coherent statement ("Don't Kill The Whale"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tspit74 Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Okay. I took about 30 seconds to rattle off a couple Yes style lyrics that mean absolutely nothing. Maybe I'll fire up the synths and Mellotron patch and record it this weekend. I can see Jon Anderson singing this: We reachHands touchTo the sourcerevealing The right. Our riteTo confront the riverChangeAcceptance to reveal our cosmic mind Answering the callOf oceans in our timesLoveTo loveWe love The streams of love call us closer to the source... Oh well, I think it's funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Elias Graves Posted January 30, 2009 Author Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Okay. I took about 30 seconds to rattle off a couple Yes style lyrics that mean absolutely nothing. Maybe I'll fire up the synths and Mellotron patch and record it this weekend. I can see Jon Anderson singing this:We reachHands touchTo the sourcerevealingThe right. Our riteTo confront the riverChangeAcceptance to reveal our cosmic mindAnswering the callOf oceans in our timesLoveTo loveWe loveThe streams of love call us closer to the source...Oh well, I think it's funny. That's great. Start a new thread on Let's Write a Yes Song. EG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Not a Yes fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted January 30, 2009 Members Share Posted January 30, 2009 Both. Damn... great minds do think alike. I was going to write, simply: Transcendent gibberish. Like many an aging child of the 60s on his way to the 80s, I passed through the strange turf trod by Yes's resident lyricists (in many ways). And like many, I was seriously overexposed to their hits, and allowed my postive memories of them (I had Fragile on reel to reel tape until my deck and tapes were burgled away, along with 300 LPs and my guitar) to be washed away by their endless rotation on the already ossified rock stations of the mid-70s. But a year or so ago, I decided to see if I could see what I saw in them... and I could, as it turned out. They had a great rhythm section... that massive, eminently nasty bass and Bruford's smackazz drumming... Once you get past Jon Anderson's vocals, they were, for a period, really a hard rocking band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Eclepto Funk Posted January 31, 2009 Members Share Posted January 31, 2009 i'm not familiar with all their work, but the ones i've heard make sense if you "get it" for example, "I've Seen All Good People" makes no sense unless you've read "Through the Looking Glass" (watching the Alice in Wonderland Disney film won't help you) "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is an extended metaphor which basically comes down to "not making a choice is making a choice" of course, that's just two of their songs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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