Yes lyrics, does anybody understand these?

Jon has gone through about four phazes of lyric construction.  Phaze one (Yes and A Time and a Word) is easily understandable.  Phaze four (90125 onwards) is not much more difficult.  Phaze three (GFTO and Tormato) can be understood with a bit of work.  Phaze two (TYA through Relayer) is inscrutable.

nope...  and never tried...  it's part of the charm of prog.  Much like Italian prog...  I know for a fact I could never enjoy Concerto della Menti if I understood what he was 'singing' about.  Life is too short for wasting brain-cells trying to figure the stuff out.  Listen to music ... for the music.  The times when you aren't, or can't,  is when you should be trying to figure out the grand meanings of life.  

Kim Ankara wrote: ghost_of_morphy wrote: Phaze two (TYA through Relayer) is inscrutable. Are you sure? There are probably a few lyrics from that era that are indeed inscrutable, but Your Move and Gates of Delirium both are easy to figure out with some effort (being about chess and war, in my understanding).

Kim Ankara wrote: ghost_of_morphy wrote: Phaze two (TYA through Relayer) is inscrutable. Are you sure? There are probably a few lyrics from that era that are indeed inscrutable, but Your Move and Gates of Delirium both are easy to figure out with some effort (being about chess and war, in my understanding).

And so is Tales of topographic oceans!

chopper wrote: Kim Ankara wrote: ghost_of_morphy wrote: Phaze two (TYA through Relayer) is inscrutable. Are you sure? There are probably a few lyrics from that era that are indeed inscrutable, but Your Move and Gates of Delirium both are easy to figure out with some effort (being about chess and war, in my understanding). Agreed, Gates isn't that hard to understand. Anderson has admitted that he picks words for their sound rather than meaning so I wouldn't read too much into them. I still don't know what a "seasoned witch" is, presumably one that has been liberally laced with salt and pepper?

jammun wrote: A "seasoned witch" is probably a stream of consciousness reference to Donovan's Season of the Witch.  I'm sure we could  parse most of the lyrics similarly.

Wow! Never thought of that. I just thought he meant an old witch.

In any case, Jon's greatest period of lyric-writing for me is that inscrutable period. He was just in a zone, mystically freed of any constraints, letting the music inspire cascades of poetry that perfectly matched said music.

"Hot colour melting the anger to stone..."

i have to agree with jammun.
regarding looking into them and figuring them out, honestly for me it doesn't even matter.
the words just sound musical and fit seamlessly into the melodies they're singing. and it was always the yes music that inspired me the most, never the words. i just posed this question because I realized having listened to yes for so long, i've never paid any attention to the words. but this little thread pretty much just affirms my feeling that the words don't really even matter that much. if you can understand them, and take something from them, great, that's a bonus. but if not, they do absolutely nothing to detract from the beauty of yes.
i've always loved "coming quickly to terms of all expression laid, emotion revealed as the ocean maid. as the movement regained and regarded both the same, all complete in the sight of seeds of life with you." honestly, though, what a beautiful passage, right? doesn't mean much to me, and probably makes a lot more sense in the greater context of the piece, but yeah... whatever. sounds good.

yesman1972 wrote: Speaking of Yes lyrics, can anyone please tell me what is being sung at the end of To Be Over? Are there even lyrics or are these just sounds? Thank you.

Yes Chopper, you are probably right. Perhaps it's French again. Anyway, I would really love to know what they are singing. The restatnig of the opening melody with vocals is one of the best things they've recorded so far, and I want to completey understand it. 

Close to the Edge is based on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, a book about a man trying to find enlightenment.

I'm curious as to weather there is any meaning behind Siberian Khatru. I have a feeling it's random, but there's a reason Jon chose those words. Unless it's stream of conciousnes or something like that... which would perhaps lend itself to a psychological analysis? I don't know if any of that's been done for some of the more famous stream works though.

Edited by Kestrel - August 12 2008 at 04:55