Yes, Topographic Oceans

Epignosis wrote: I like to sing the lyrics really loud in the bathroom. THEY MOVE FAST THEY TELL ME BUT I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I CAN FEEL IT I sang half of Ritual in the loo tonight.

Please understand, I'm not writing this to be a corrective jerk.  (Actually Epi, your posts are among the ones I find most enjoyable, and your serious love of this album is something I understand and share .)  But that last lyric is incorrect (if you're talking about that moment near the close of Revealing where Anderson sings over Wakeman) and should read, "they really mean to."

I wouldn't post such a thing at all ever if it wasn't for a funny fact that makes that one lyrical moment stick in my head perhaps more that any other.

I grew up pretty poor, but my brother had a vinyl record collection of great music that I listened to religiously, almost all of which was this stuff which would later come to be called prog rock.  An easy favorite of mine, deeply meaningful to me then as now, was Tales.  But the record was getting old, tight money prevented the thought of replacing it, and the record developed a bad scratch that became a skip.  It would go...

THEY MOVE FAST
THEY TELL ME
BUT I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE
THEY REALLY MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) MEAN TO (skip) ...

Whenever I listen to the CD now, and that part comes, I think of that skip.  I remember making a tape of it for carrying around (so I could geek out in public and not just at home!).  The skip was on the tape too, about five skips before I succesfully nudged the needle past that point and into Howe's little volume pedal accents that follow.  That further reenforced the skip in my mind, almost as if it was a part of the song.  Like, Jon really can't believe they mean to!

Anyway, man is that album the greatest!

^ Aaaaah, right.  Followed by, "There's someone / to tell you..."  Got it.  The part I was talking about was the return reference to that earlier music, which moment you would agree is one of the greatest nods to symphonists ever to take place in rock, and the chills it produces, the epic close of the piece, wouldn't have been possible without that earlier section.  Yeah, those fellas were pretty good.

You can imagine my surprise when I heard TFTO, considering my first experience of Yes, as a fledgling progger, was 90125!! I was just getting into prog and had no real idea what to expect from album to the next.

TFTO wrestles with CTTE for my third favourite Yes album, behind Fragile and GFTO. It's mainly on the strength of 'The Revealing Science of God' which is my all time favourite Yes track.

You must check this album out!

Atavachron wrote: there are two classic Yes albums that can be difficult; Tales and Relayer, many fans prefer one or the other, some like both.

Both are an "acquired taste."  I acquired my taste for Relayer long before Tales...

TheLastBaron wrote: Now with my love for those three albums, should I venture into Tales from Topographic Oceans? I've heard mixed things.