DON'T KILL THE WHALE

Taken from their very underrated "Tormato" album, "Don`t Kill the Whale" is a song with "ecological lyrics", composed by Jon Anderson and Chris Squire. It has good arrangements. Rick Wakeman was using then a keyboard called Birotron, which I read in the web that it was an improved version of the mellotron, which I think that it wasn`t used by many keyboard players apart from Wakeman. It is more a Rock song than a Prog Rock song, and it is one of the best from the "Tormato" album. Squire plays piano in this song.

"Abilene" is a song composed by Steve Howe. It is also a good song on which Howe plays acoustic guitars, a mandolin (or a vachalia?) and an electric sitar. Again, this is a more Rock song than a Prog Rock song, but it`s good anyway. This song was previously released in the "Yesyears" Box Set, and I think that it is now available in the Rhino Records Remastered CD which was released 2 or 3 years ago.

IMO, both songs show that YES was in a "crisis" because they couldn`t define the style of their songs in the late seventies. Maybe that was the main problem with the "Tormato" album, recorded and released in 1978, in a year in which Prog Rock music was losing popularity, and bands like YES, ELP, PFM, Genesis and others didn`t know clearly what to do with their music: to please their old Prog Rock fans, or to listen to Record Labels Executives`"kind suggestions" to change their style to have songs played in the Radio. Anyway, this single wasn`t a hit, and the "crisis" came to the end when Anderson and Wakeman left YES in late 1979 / early 1980 after some failed recording sessions in Paris for a new album, with Roy Thomas Baker as producer.