# Can you make sense of any Yes song lyrics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [June 18, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278 "2013-06-18T15:42:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/21 "2013-06-19T12:19:03Z")
> [@Quercus\_alba](#): > > - How can the wind with it’s arms all around me?\* I was going to take you to task for inappropriate apostrophe use, but since it’s a Yes lyric, I guess I really can’t. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/22 "2013-06-19T12:20:04Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Consider yourself hugged or high-fived or whatever kids do on the internet these days. 😃 Now go and download that album! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/23 "2013-06-19T12:48:45Z")
People pay attention to Yes lyrics? And worry that they don’t make sense? I suspect a deficiency in plasma cannabinoids. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/24 "2013-06-20T02:26:51Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > 😃 > > Now go and download that album! I did!! ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/25 "2013-06-20T03:03:27Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I did!! I find it is a great album to listen to while getting a massage. It seems Tolkienesque in some ways… 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/26 "2013-06-20T06:25:14Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > All I have to say on the subject is Cha cha cha _CHA_ cha… > > …or something like that. 😃 I dare you to not to air guitar this. or keyboard it. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/27 "2013-06-20T14:20:54Z")
From 1970-1978, I rarely understood any of Yes’ lyrics. In the Sixties and the Eighties, when they were more pop-oriented, I generally did understand the lyrics, which were far more straightforward. About a year ago, Jon Anderson was doing a one-man unplugged/storytellers show here in Austin, at the intimate One World Theater. After he finished “Yours Is No Disgrace,” someone called out “What does that song mean?” Anderson actually asnwered: “People always ask me what my songs mean.\*\* I \*\*don’t know what they mean.” He then giggled and took a puff on an imaginary joint, cracking everybody up. I’d figured that out a long time ago, but as a teen, I wasted a lot of hours trying to decipher the profound meaning I was sure those lyrics held. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/28 "2013-06-22T23:42:43Z")
I’ve never smoked pot, and a lot of them make perfect sense to me. Some real good story-telling in some of them. Specificly, _Gates_ and pretty much the whole\* Going For the One \*album. You want incomprehensible lyrics? Look no further than **The Blue Oyster Cult**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/29 "2013-06-23T00:08:22Z")
Isn’t “Tales from Topographic Oceans” supposed to be a concept album about tantric sex? 😕 Just today, I took “The Yes Album” out of my car’s CD player and put in the perfect summer album, the Candy Skins’ “Fun”. Kudos if you’ve ever heard of it; my college’s radio station had the whole album in heavy rotation during the summer of 1993, and I’m guessing that this was probably the only place that did. It’s a shame too, because it’s terrific, and sounds best when the temperature is over 80 degrees, which it definitely is here right now. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/30 "2013-06-23T00:14:02Z")
Okay, let’s compare. First, Yes. \*Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face. Caesar’s palace, morning glory, silly human race, On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place, If the summer change to winter, yours is no disgrace. \* Now BOC: _Clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst Out at you from their hiding place Like acid and oil on a madman’s face His reason tends to fly away Like lesser birds on the four winds Like silver scrapes in may And now the sand’s become a crust Most of you have gone away_ With Yes, each sentence fragment in “Yours is No Disgrace” makes sense, but taken as a whole it’s a mess. OTOH, “Astronomy” manages almost two whole lines in a row that make sense, and by the end the entire song comes together as Summer’s end outside a bar on a Long Island beach. With plenty of beer and dope. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/31 "2013-06-23T03:06:12Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I’ve never smoked pot, and a lot of them make perfect sense to me. Some real good story-telling in some of them. Specificly, _Gates_ and pretty much the whole\* Going For the One \*album. > > You want incomprehensible lyrics? Look no further than **The Blue Oyster Cult**. 😃 MORE COWBELL! 😃 (Ever since that classic SNL skit aired, Eric Bloom has had to deny persistent rumors that he is dead.) Remember the multiple versions of the video for “Leave It” - and then they went with that really strange version? At the time, I worked with a black woman who described it this way: “There’s these men, and they all be flipping around…” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2013, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/32 "2013-07-02T19:26:14Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Isn’t “Tales from Topographic Oceans” supposed to be a concept album about tantric sex? 😕 Only the 4th side: “Ritual.” _Lay upon me, hold me around lasting hours We love when we play_ ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/33 "2013-07-03T05:25:04Z")
“Hold On” seems to make much less sense than “Heart of the Sunrise” Talk the simple smile Such platonic eye How they drown in incomplete capacity Strangest of them all When the feeling calls How we drown in stylistic audacity Charge the common ground Round and round and round We living in gravity Shake - We shake so hard How we laugh so loud When we reach We believe in eternity “Heart of the Sunrise” Love comes to you and you follow Lose one on to the heart of the sunrise SHARP-DISTANCE How can the wind with its arms All around me Lost on a wave and then after Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise SHARP-DISTANCE How can the wind with so many around me Lost in the city Lost in their eyes as you hurry by Counting the broken ties they decide Love comes to you and then after Dream on on to the heart of the sunrise Lost on a wave that you’re dreaming Dram on on to the heart of the sunrise SHARP-DISTANCE How can the wind with its arms all around Me SHARP-DISTANCE How can the wind with so many around me I feel lost in the city Then comes the batshit-insane lyrics of “Close to the Edge” (If you’re hearing that sick bass and drum groove right now, you’re welcome) A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace, And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace, And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar, Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour. And assessing points to nowhere, leading ev’ry single one. A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun, And take away the plain in which we move, And choose the course you’re running. Down at the edge, round by the corner, Not right away, not right away. Close to the edge, down by a river, Not right away, not right away. Crossed the line around the changes of the summer, Reaching out to call the color of the sky. Passed around a moment clothed in mornings faster than we see. Getting over all the time I had to worry, Leaving all the changes far from far behind. We relieve the tension only to find out the master’s name. I kind of hate when I hear any reference to _Owner of a lonely heart_ because that was the only song people knew from Yes, and it made them seem like a one hit wonder. 9012Live and Big Generator actually had a few good songs on them. _Leave it_ stands out. I can feel no sense of measure No illusions as we take Refuge in young man’s pleasure Breaking down the dreams we make real Like them or not, they were an epic band, almost literally. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/34 "2013-07-03T16:03:00Z")
Make sense? No, but I like the impressions they create, which can sometimes be very rich in imagery … though other times not so much, like most of Close To The Edge. I do like the “I get up I get down” part of that, though, including the backing vocal interplay. But the rest of the words, as I read them above I don’t even recognize them, despite having mentally learned nearly every note played by guitar, bass, and keyboards, on the Yessongs version. Ah, my misspent youth! ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/35 "2013-07-03T16:18:12Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > But the rest of the words, as I read them above I don’t even recognize them, despite having mentally learned nearly every note played by guitar, bass, and keyboards, on the Yessongs version. Ah, my misspent youth! Ah, the memories. Yessongs was the second album I ever bought - $5.99 for the three-disc set at Sound Warehouse! - and I still fondly remember the anticipation as I walked home with it. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/36 "2013-07-04T14:40:24Z")
My favorite band. As a teen, now as a 51 year old. Adore the music, enjoy the random messiness of a lot of Jon’s lyrics. You don’t like poetry, don’t read or listen to it ! 😃 Lurve me some YES. ETA: The standard huge sign writ onto a bedsheet, hung from the upper level railings at The Spectrum in Philly: JON is YES ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/37 "2013-07-04T14:57:51Z")
The lyrics of ‘The Clap’, ‘Five Percent For Nothing’ and ‘Cans and Brahms’ made perfect sense to me… ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/38 "2013-07-04T18:42:30Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > The lyrics of ‘The Clap’, ‘Five Percent For Nothing’ and ‘Cans and Brahms’ made perfect sense to me… Probably among the most accessible of Yes’s songs, from a lyrical standpoint. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carson.c.smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@carson.c.smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carson.c.smith)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/39 "2023-08-31T22:29:36Z")
“Their lyrics could often be obscure to the point of extreme esotericism. Compared to more traditional lyrical forms, Yes lyrics are like a mobile of metaphysical phrases and symbols. According to one source, the lyrics were one of the reasons Bill Buford and Rick Wakeman later left the band, so if you feel uncomfortable with them, you have good company. For me, the sound of the music more than compensates for the lyrical deficit. I just hear the lyrics as ‘metaphysical scat’ and avoid trying to make sense of them; they’re often quite euphonious and blend well with the music.” – altrockchick, April 23, 2023 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278/40 "2023-08-31T23:46:33Z")
I’m late to the party, but Changes seems to be pretty clear. Other than that… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-sense-of-any-yes-song-lyrics/661278.md?page=3)