The Philosophical and Conceptual ideas in

There's a professor of philosophy from Chicago, Bill Martin I think his name is, who wrote a pretty much exhaustive study of the 'philosophical aspects' of classic Yes music. (Afterwards he also wrote liner notes for Yes CDs.) Problem is, these philosophical connotations exist ONLY in Martin's head. Jon Anderson wrote a number of (notoriously incoherent) lyrics, and Martin went on to interpret them using Plato, Nietzsche, William Blake and whoever else he could lay his hands on. This is one of the problems of so-called rock criticism: anything goes! (Ben Watson's entertaining study of Frank Zappa's music, THE NEGATIVE DIALECTICS OF POODLE PLAY, even shows that APOSTROPHE is based on Shakespeare's King Lear.) But nothing will prevent you from having a go of your own. Perhaps, if you're really interested in 'philosophical and conceptual' ideas, you will be interested in the work of some of prog's more articulate songwriters, such as Peter Gabriel and Peter Hammill.

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for Kevin Ayers' lyrics, e.g.

People say that they want to be free
They look at them and they look at me
But it's only themselves they are wanting to see
And everybody knows about it.

Looking for a true nihilist philosopher? Take Peter Hammill circa 71-76

BroSpence wrote: Then there's Animals by Floyd.  Although I haven't paid too much attention to the lyrics so I don't know how well it represents Orwell's writing.

Only loosely inspired by Orwell, I think, but unforgettable, all the same - especially 'Dogs'. Some of Waters' lyrics I can't get out of my head, and often find myself repeating them, e.g.:

And in the end you'll pack up
fly down South
and hide your head in the sand,
just another sad old man,
all alone and dying of cancer

Cheer up - it's only a pop song!

The Gabe described The Lamb as "A hymn to the integral innocence of the human spirit meeting the bacon-slicer of a corruptive society". So basically, all humans start out good, and are quickly corrupted by society. That's the philosiphy behind the Lamb - I know The Lamb sounds like nonesense, and even after reading that, still might. But for me, it suddenly made sense after reading that.