Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974.
--Homer Simpson
This simple man's theory is helped by the fact that this album was actually one of
two released by Yes in that year. TFTO was released on January 9, to get that
year of rock perfection off to a good, if strange, start. Now you have to understa
nd something, and that is that this album was released at basically the height of Yes'
popularity in the seventies. (I added that last prepositional phrase to discourage any
of you 90125-heads out there from citing me chapter and verse on how many copies
that silver-covered little baby sold in the eighties). Anyway, by 1973, when
recording began on the project, they had had some radio success, and they had eased
through the transition to the long-form pieces with CTTE. They also had the mark of
success for all 70's bands, the live album. Not content to just have a double, they
made a triple live album. And now they were ready to embark on a spiritual
quest with TFTO. By "they," I of course mean Anderson and Howe. Those two had the idea
and basically had to talk the others into it. And by "spiritual quest," I of course mean
"Oh my gosh we've got four whole sides of vinyl to fill better think of something weird
quick!"
All kidding aside, I do love this album. I recently cited it as my favorite
in one of those get-to-know-you e-mail things. It has four songs, each one vinyl side
long, or about twenty minutes. I first heard of it in a book called I Wanna Be
Sedated, about music in the 70's. I don't remember the exact words, but the mention
of a 4-song double album really intrigued me. "Self, I must hear that album," I said to
myself. I bought it in the summer of 97, from the CD club. I listened to it on the way
to and from Nevada (it was during county fair time, I wasn't going to visit any hicks),
and I was totally blown away. I had been exposed to RSOG and Ritual, but only live
versions. Since I knew those two, I think that somewhat tainted my enjoyment of the
thing as a whole. After the initial listen, I tended to only play them when I listened
to the CD, and ignore the others. Since those times, of course, I have grown to love all
four songs, but still favor those two early favorites a little more. I even wrote their
summaries first. Here's a little song-by-song.
The Revealing Science of God Dance of the Dawn This song ranks right up there with my favorite Yessongs of all time. Today I listened to it on my brother's stereo & I decided it was time to write this review. It's the sort of song that's a little intimidating at first, but once you know it, you can really get something out of it. I say "you" because *I* can never find deeper meanings in songs unless they are pointed out to me. I think they really use the 20 minutes (actually 20:27) to their advantage in this one. It flows well and there is a clear beginning, middle, and end. The very beginning serves its purpose in getting you intrigued for what is to come. It's one of those times when I really wish I would have been around when this album was released. To be presented with this thing, this album, these 2 records worth of yet-unheard music, and sit in front of the record player, with headphones on, and hear "Dawn of light lying between the silence and sold sources..." for the very first time would be such an awesome experience.
The Remembering High the Memory This is a nice little song, it's kind of got the oceanic thing going for it. Since my CD is all the way upstairs and I don't want to go get it, I'll think of stuff to write for this one based on looking at the record. Ah. The most important thing about this song is that it introduces the theme of Relayer. Well actually just the word "Relayer" but that's enough of an introduction for me. My favorite line from this song is "Stand on hills of long-forgotten yesterdays." It's probably the song on the album that I have listened to the least, but that doesn't mean it's not a good song. The only bad thing about having TFTO on CD is that the little flute notes at the beginning of this song kind of jar me out of the happy warm fuzzy feeling at the end of RSOG. But with the record, you would be able to control when you heard the next song. Oh well.
'The Ancient' Giants Under the Sun At this time I'd like to point out that the reason all the songs have two titles is that back then, artists got paid by the number of titles they had on a record. So Yes wanted to have fewer songs but still get paid. Call it what you will, but I had fun formatting the italics-within-boldface, so it had a good end result. No one really knows why The Ancient is in single quotes. This is a pretty intense song, and it has the least words. The words that are there, though, are great. "Does a lamb cry out before we shoot it dead?" in particular, has been mentioned on the ng. The guitar solo by Steve is great, too. "And I heard a million voices singing...."
Ritual Nous Sommes Du Soleil Yes, I did ask my mother (who took French
in high school) what "nous sommes du soliel" meant. This doesn't mean I'm a loser or
anything. I do love this song. The words are very sweet. Sometimes you may say the
lyrics lack "structure" or "proper syntax." (wander we choose love tune, etc.) You
may say I "don't know how to write a real review." Well I say shove it. The words
are nice and they express the proper feeling of finding love and contentment with
someone. Even though that hasn't quite happened for me yet, it will someday. And
I will share this song with them.
A cool thing to do on Tripod with that stupid little window that pops up.
Click on "find more pages like the one below" and it takes you to a place
where you can search for anything on Tripod that you want. I like to search for my own
pages and see if I find them.
Like the other day I searched for "Topographic Oceans" and I found a few pages on this
same album, but they were just track listings, lyrics, and liner notes.
Then there were some pages about actual topography of oceans. Pretty cool, huh?
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