Anyone get the meaning of the lyrics of the Yes song “Your Move”? Some parts are self-explanatory, your basic hippie-karmic “getting in tune with yourself” stuff, e.g.,
Send that instant karma to me,
Initial it “With loving care, yourself”
…but what’s with the recurrent chess motif? All that ‘white queen’ and ‘move me onto any black square’ and ‘queen to capture’ stuff?
Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post
Just extended metaphor would be my guess. After all, consider that the song title is both (a) a concession that the other person in the presumable romantic relationship has the right to make the next choice, and (b) probably the single commonest phrase in a chess game.
Nothing to add about the meaning. Just wanted to point out that “Your Move” is actually just a movement of the larger work “I’ve Seen All Good People”. Query: Was “Your Move” released as a single on its own?
The answer to MrKnowItAll’s query is “Yes”. “Your Move” was Yes’ first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 hit, reaching #40 in 1971. The B side for that single was “Clap”–as far as I can tell “I’ve Seen All Good People” was never released on a single, although album rock stations do often play them together.
Anyone else ever hear the take-off on the old “Who’s On First” comedy routine, which featured “Yes”, “The Who”, and “Guess Who”?
The song owes a little something to Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Moving “the white queen so fast” echoes the statement (by the Red Queen, IIRC) that you have to run fast just to stay in one place – to get anywhere you have to run twice as fast.
“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen