Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock

by Bill Martin

Overview

Music of Yes examines the work of one of the most creative groups from the progressive rock period, Yes.

Unlike most books on rock music, Music of Yes does not focus on personalities, but instead on musical structures, lyrical vision, and cultural and historical context. The author situates Yes within the utopian ideals of the sixties and the experimental trend in rock music initiated by the Beatles and also taken up by groups such as King Crimson. Martin demonstrates the power of Yes's romantic, utopian, "Blakean", ecological, multicultural, and feminist perspective, showing how this vision is developed through

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812693331
Publisher:	Open Court Publishing Company
Publication date:	11/01/1996
Series:	Feedback , #1
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction: The ideologies of form	xi
Part 1	Before and beyond	1
	Introducing Yes	1
	Yes	10
	Time and a Word	20
Part 2	Perpetual change: The "main sequence" from The Yes Album to Going for the One	37
	The time of progressive rock	37
	An avant-garde from somewhere else	45
	"There is something very English ..."	53
	Perpetual change	58
	The Yes Album	61
	"Yours Is No Disgrace"	62
	"Clap"	71
	"Starship Trooper"	72
	"I've Seen All Good People"	78
	"A Venture"	81
	"A Perpetual Change"	84
	Summary	94
	Fragile	97
	"Cans and Brahms"	103
	"Five Per Cent for Nothing"	104
	"We Have Heaven"	105
	"Mood for a Day"	106
	"The Fish" and a portrait of Chris Squire	107
	"Roundabout"	115
	"South Side of the Sky"	120
	"Long Distance Runaround"	121
	"Heart of the Sunrise"	123
	Summary	126
	Close to the Edge	128
	"Siberian Khatru"	129
	"And You and I"	134
	"Close to the Edge"	138
	Tales from Topographic Oceans	145
	"The Revealing Science of God"	147
	"The Remembering"	150
	"The Ancient"	151
	"Ritual"	154
	Relayer	158
	"Sound Chaser"	159
	"To Be Over"	161
	"The Gates of Delirium"	163
	Going for the One	168
	"Going for the One"	171
	"Turn of the Century"	172
	"Parallels"	174
	"Wondrous Stories"	175
	"Awaken"	176
Part 3	In the beginning is the future: Yes from 1978 into the new millennium	185
	Solo and live work	191
	The Six Wives of Henry VIII	191
	Beginnings	193
	Olias of Sunhillow	195
	Fish Out of Water	198
	Yessongs (the album)	200
	Yessongs (the film)	202
	This is all confusion: Tormato and Drama	204
	Tormato	204
	Drama	207
	We exist through this strange disguise: 90125 to Talk	215
	90125	219
	Big Generator	221
	Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe	226
	Union	229
	Talk	231
	In the beginning is the future	236
	A concluding note on form and utopia	237
	Notes	241
	Discography	251
	Bibliography	253
	Permission acknowledgments	259
	Index	265

Editorial Reviews

"Long-winded" and "pompous" are derisions routinely leveled against Yes, the kings of "avant-rock," and they often apply to this examination of the band's music by social theorist Martin (philosophy, DePaul Univ.). The author fulfills the dream of any Yes-fanatic by waxing philosophic about the group's entire recorded output, focusing on their "main sequence" of albums from The Yes Album (1971) through Going for the One (1977). Martin goes to great pains to explain the importance of Yes's "vision" and argues his own interpretations of their music and lyrics in excruciating detail. Unfortunately, he offers little external evidence to support his musings; nor is the coverage broad enough to be a useful work on the progressive rock movement as a whole. Having little appeal to those not Yes-obsessed, this book is unnecessary for all but the largest popular music collections. General readers may be more tempted by Yesstories: Yes in Their Own Words (St. Martin's, 1996).-Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., Cal.

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