We phoned up the Voice of Yes himself, maestro Jon Anderson, to help with our assessment (gladly playing Aeneas to his guiding Virgil), and in doing so obtained new insight into the making of one of the band’s loveliest—yet most criminally derided—opuses.
CLEVELAND MUSIC EXAMINER: Thanks for taking the time to revisit Tales from Topographic Oceans with us. Can you believe it’s been forty years?
JON ANDERSON: Oh, wow! No! It seems like it was a long time ago. But forty years—you can’t really capture forty years right now. It seems like just a couple years ago to me, because time flies, you know?
EXAMINER: Can you talk a little about the background behind the album and how the band went into it after the success of Fragile and Close to the Edge? The band had already experimented with long-form pieces, but nobody was quite prepared for something of this magnitude. I recall reading that some critics listened to “Close to the Edge” and “And You and I” and either jokingly or smarmily said, “They’ll probably put the Bible to music next.” And your response was to show them it could be done.
JON: I think it was an interesting time for the band, that period. There was a lot of FM radio who would play long-form pieces of music without any advertising. We felt we were on the cutting edge of rock music—progressive rock—totally different from the norm. And the FM radio in America—especially university radio—was very excited to play “Close to the Edge,” “And You and I,” “Starship Trooper,” and longer pieces. So we felt, well, the door seems to be open. Let’s make some music. And of course, when people get together to make music, you don’t really time it and say, “We should just make four-minute pieces of music.” Or five-minute pieces of music. We were just interested in expanding the music that we dreamed of. It wasn’t like, “Let’s sit down and write twenty-minute pieces of music.” We just started writing. We were actually on tour in Japan and Australia, and we started composing ideas, and before you know it, you’re dreaming of new progressions and ideas that are just different. Like having everyone in the band drumming at once. Or having everybody singing and playing different instruments. Challenging yourself, really.
EXAMINER: Scanning the lyrics for the four songs, or “movements,” on the album, I note a lot of themes concerning world history, art, music, architecture, and culture—particularly as it relates to storytelling and oral tradition through the ages. As if there’s a narrative thread running through the music about different peoples over time who carry on everything we’ve learned and experienced as a race by singing or talking about it, or creating art about it. Is that off the mark?
JON: You actually…you explained it perfectly. I wish I’d said that when we released it!
EXAMINER: Was this album tough to translate from the writing stage to the recording stage? Do you know going in just how big everything would be, and what parts would go where?
JON: I think in rehearsal, we were in the studio quite a lot and I’d written down a lot of sketches of ideas. Like how the second movement would be generated by keyboards—very strong keyboards. And the third movement would be very ancient sounding, like music from a different world, if you like. And of course, “Ritual” was very strong in its shape, and we all finished up drumming together and creating this wild dance.
EXAMINER: Yes folklore has it you guys decorated the recording studio with props like cutout farm animals and bales of hay to give it an outdoorsy feel. Any ring of truth there?
JON: Well, at that time I’d been looking for a place to record in the forest. There was this forest I’d been to, just about fifty miles from London. And I just loved the energy. It was more of a wood-land. And I thought we could put up a tent in back and bury some generators—I had this idea about burying the generators so we couldn’t hear them—and then record in nature. That was the whole concept. And the guys and the manager were like, “Jon, you’re losing it!” [laughs] So what I did was bring some flowers and pots of greenery to the studio, and I found some cutout sheep and cows and put them in the studio. Just fun, you know? Because when you’re in a box-like studio, it doesn’t really push the envelope about what you’re trying to create musically. So I just thought we’d get some plants and palm trees in there and make it look like we’re in this garden. It was a bit strange, but it kind of looked okay.
EXAMINER: Do you mind if we kind of walk through each of the four songs a bit?
JON: Please!
EXAMINER: First up is “The Revealing Science of God,” which is bookended by chanting at the beginning—the “dawn of light lying between silence and sold sources—and the end, with the “…for you and you and you” conclusion. Was that a conscious thing, building up the track from a chant-like vocal, expanding the sound, and then winding down again?
JON: Yeah, because I just had this idea of starting the piece with voices. And I’d been listening to Gregorian chant and things like that, and thought it would be very atmospheric to build and build with voices and voices, then break into the main theme and main song, “What happened to this song we once knew so well?” And that line is more, what happened to the reality we once knew so well? What happened to the beautiful Earth we once knew so well? Because it was one of those fears, in my mind, Vietnam was still going, and there was just no end to the madness. It was like, what happened that money is everything, and that materialism is really where we should go? What happened to this song, this world we dreamed of, you know?
EXAMINER: The next track, “The Remembering,” seems to speak to the entire written record of the human people, even as it applies to storytelling. There’s that bit in the middle where the tempo picks up and your lyrics repeatedly invoke a “relayer.” As Yes fans already know, the next album after Tales was Relayer. So did that concept originate here? Who or what is the “relayer?”
JON: The idea was that we can only remember so much, through oral history and things like that. And it’s as though musicians especially are like relayers, in that we relay the next understanding. Artists of all things relate—or relay—these images and musical ideas. And that was what the “relayer” was about. And when [the album] Relayer came about, I jumped into the war and peace attitude, and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, sort of thing. So I think that sparked the whole idea.
EXAMINER: Ah, gotcha. Sort of a “Don’t shoot the messenger thing.” It’s like saying, “We’re the musicians, the artists. We didn’t create these circumstances we’re just here to chronicle and reflect upon them.”
JON: Exactly.
EXAMINER: “The Ancient” kicks off with some freeform percussion, warbled bass, and Steve Howe’s wild pedal steel. Later, you rattle off a bunch of names: Sol, Dhoop, Ilios, Naytheet, Qurax…. Are those like, Indian names for--
JON: They’re just different names for the sun. They’re different names or explanations for the sun. Different people using different words.
EXAMINER: Right. And that concept carries over thematically in Side Four, “Ritual,” whose subtitle is “Nous Sommes Du Soleil.” Translating loosely, doesn’t that mean “We Are of the Sun” or something like that?
JON: Of course, we’re from the sun. We’re physically part of the sun. The sun gives us energy, creates our world. We are of the sun. And no matter how many times I hear scientists say, “Oh, that’s impossible,” I just don’t understand why, when we start thinking about alien beings, how they have to look like us…. When I saw “Close Encounters” and saw those spaceships flying ‘round the corner, I thought, “See! They don’t have to look like spaceships!” [laughs]
EXAMINER: Love that movie. The little boy, Barry—or maybe it’s the Richard Dreyfuss character—he says one of the little ones looked like an ice cream cone.
JON: Anything they want to be! I don’t mind. The whole idea was that the sun is so powerful, that without it we are nothing. And the other thing was, who knows what the “song” is created from? The song continues through different life experiences. We’re going through one now, and our soul is eternal—and we’re not supposed to know [laughs]!
EXAMINER: It’s wonderful thought-provoking to try and understand cosmic things like that—the “Big Picture,” so to speak—but you’re right, some of it is just beyond our comprehension. Another part of “Ritual” I wanted to ask about was this business of “our music’s total retain.” The phrase harkens back to a movement in “Close to the Edge,” the “Total Mass Retain.” Does this refer to the body of all knowledge, or perhaps—more specifically—to the canon of Yes music?
JON: Again, I think it’s just the way music is. We retain a lot of the understanding of what we’re doing musically, in order to reach as many people as we can, whether it’s a hundred or a thousand. So we were going through that period then, and we were selling millions of records to millions of people around the world, and in order to understand that, all I was saying was that we were trying to retain some sensibility about what we were doing and be part of it, you know?
EXAMINER: I’ve always liked the line, “We receive all we venture to give.” It reminds me of that Beatles lyric, “The love you take is equal to the love you make.”
JON: Perfect! Perfect! I was brought up on The Beatles, and their music inspired me so much. We receive all we venture to give. And one of the things I’ve learned over the years is that giving is everything, and taking is nothing. You take stuff, and then you’ve got nothing, really. In giving, you’ve got everything.
EXAMINER: In the grand scheme, consumption and collection is a self-centric kind of thing, whereas sharing and collaboration gets more to the idea of people being in the same boat and getting on together.
JON: Right, exactly.
EXAMINER: I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about Alan White’s input on Tales. He joined the band for the Close to the Edge tour—but this was his first time in studio with the band. How did his drumming add to the mix?
JON: He was such an integral part of the structures we were developing. And one of the things I think Alan brought was, he played a bit of piano, so he’d bring in some ideas now and again. He’s a consummate drummer, of course, but he’s a musician.
Yeah!
EXAMINER: I recall he played a bit of piano on “In the Presence Of,” or one of those other tracks on Magnification.
JON: We actually wrote a couple songs on Going for the One together, too.
EXAMINER: It’s well-documented in earlier interviews that Rick Wakeman wasn’t a big fan of Tales or the direction the band was going at the time. He left the band for a couple years after the Tales tour and came back, as we all know. And it recent years he’s had a change of heart about the album, saying that he likes quite a lot of it. Did his reluctance cause a bit of tension when you were making Tales?
JON: Yeah. At that point he was very busy working on his, I think it was Journey to the Center of the Earth and a couple other things he’d been dreaming of. So he wasn’t 100% on the album. But it was amazing when he came in, and when we did “The Remembering,” that section about 2/3 in there’s that progression of chords. And we told him, “This is your solo platform now.” And he said, “But there are so many chords!” And we told him not to think about the chords, but to just go on top of them. We gave it about three or four tries, and he started to grasp the idea that he didn’t he didn’t have to change every time a chord changed—he danced over the top of it. And they were some of the most beautiful pieces of Rick’s work, ever.
EXAMINER: Of course, the cover art for Tales is among the band’s most iconic sleeves. Roger Dean’s painting seems to incorporate Stonehenge and the Mayan temple at Chichen Itza and other notable monuments and monoliths from around the world into one cosmic, composite landscape. It’s a very dreamy, otherworldly image that complements the music inside.
JON: Yeah. It was one of those things where Roger did the basic artwork. Then I suggested the Mayan temple, how it would be great to see it in the distance there. And then other people suggested other monuments, sort of hidden in there, to make it subtle—so that people might see different things every time they look at it. That’s how we developed it.
EXAMINER: What did you learn from Tales and Relayer that you brought with you to the making of your first solo album, Olias of Sunhillow? Those albums must’ve really opened your mind and ears to the possibility of new sounds—music that wasn’t necessarily Western-oriented.
JON: Well, it was everything in a way. I was just learning to play instruments very simply. And during the course of Topographic I was playing a lot of instruments. None of them got recorded, but I was playing along with the band on different parts, using these instruments I’d picked up along the way. So when I got to Olias I thought, “I’ve either got to go to a music school to learn, or—in theory—make an album where I’m learning how to play these instruments at the same time. That’s how Olias happened.
EXAMINER: I know you played all the instruments on that album, and some unusual ones, at that.
JON: I’d been picking up things like the Koto. Things from Japan and Turkey, and the balalaika from Russia. You travel the world picking these things up and then bring them home, and I had them in my garage when I started to do Olias. And they were very hard to play, so I thought if I could just do a steady eight hours a day then it might take a couple months to create the project. So I practiced and practiced until it happened, and thank God I had a really sweet engineer who hung in there with me, all these hours we played!
EXAMINER: What was it like touring behind Tales and playing two or three of those long pieces of music for audiences? Were they receptive, or restless? Did they clamor for “Starship Trooper,” “Roundabout,” and “All Good People?”
JON: It was very dreamy, because we knew we’d be going through these four twenty-minute pieces and—thankfully, the audience went along with us. We developed with each show and got better and better. But as you said at the beginning, there was a lot of criticism to do this kind of thing. But the bigger picture was, why not try something different? It wasn’t like we were trying something different just for the sake of doing it. It felt like it was the right time to do something different. And looking back, we were lucky. Twenty years later—2000 or so—we were able to tour “The Revealing” and “Ritual” with a full orchestra. We toured, and it was one of the most wonderful experiences to perform those again, and have it feel like the music works.
EXAMINER: Oh yeah, The Masterworks Tour. I remember that one. You guys played “Gates of Delirium” each night and rotated between “Ritual” and “The Revealing.”
JON: That’s right. And the music still worked. And we went through a lot of dark periods—I did, especially—where you feel like the music you’re creating isn’t accepted very well. Periods like, “I wish I hadn’t have done it, I wish I hadn’t done it [laughs].” But you did it, you went through it. It’s like the mountain that you just have to climb because it’s worthwhile doing.
EXAMINER: Yes had a lot of other great long-form “epic” songs after Tales. There was “Gates,” then “Awaken.” And in the ‘90s the band came back to doing long-form works with “Endless Dream” and “Mind Drive,” and it was very effective.
JON: Of course. “That, That Is” as well. I’d always wanted to reintroduce the band to long-form pieces of music and reintroduce audience to that excitement. Because you’re quiet for that twenty minutes, and at the end you’re released—and that’s the end of that experience. It’s more like a journey or an adventure than, “Let’s get a record on the radio.”
EXAMINER: Yes, the whole mindset of, “The music will end when it ends, when it feels right.” You can’t let the length of the song or scope of the art be dictated by some record executive behind a desk or a programmer at a radio station. There’s room for compromise, of course, but the ‘70s seemed to be a good era to stretch those parameters, no?
JON: That’s true. As I’ve always thought looking back on that period, I’m so happy that we did Topographic and Relayer with “Gates of Delirium,” in order for us to do “Awaken,” which I think is one of the most beautiful Yes works.
EXAMINER: I’ve got a lot of favorite Yes albums, but that’s probably my favorite Yes song.
JON: Right! We had to go through all that to get to that [laughs]!
EXAMINER: Original Yes guitarist Peter Banks passed away earlier this year. Do you have any nice memories of Peter, or thoughts on his contribution to the band early on?
JON: Yes, because as it happened, last year we talked a couple times, and talked about maybe writing some new stuff. And he was going through some tough times, and I was always in touch with him—like we would send email if we wanted to talk to each other. So when I look back, I was fortunate last week to see “Classic Artists: Yes Story”—it’s on You Tube now—and it was interesting watching Peter onstage and seeing what he used to put into the band. He was a very theatrical guitar player, and a wonderful guy. And it just happens that you go through a couple of albums together and tour together, and sometimes you bond, and sometimes you’re not as strong with each other as you’d like to be. My favorite story with Peter is, we were on tour with The Who, and jokingly I said to Peter, “Why don’t you get a cheap guitar and smash it up at the end of our set?” Because he really loved Pete Townshend. So he got this really cheap plastic guitar, and he picked it up toward the end of his solo, and it wouldn’t break! He jumped up and down on it, and it just wouldn’t break [laughs]! So he had a funny sense of humor as well.
EXAMINER: You’ll be doing a progressive rock all-star cruise in early 2014. Have you ever done the rock and roll cruise ship thing before?
JON: No! I’d been asked two or three times, and we’re not into the cruise ship thing anyway. But they asked me again and I thought, “Well let’s give it a try.” So we’re doing a show—I think it’s February. It’s called The Progression Nation at Sea. It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
EXAMINER: Your last collaboration with another Yes alumnus was with Rick Wakeman for The Living Tree. Any further discussions of new music with Rick?
JON: Not at the moment. I spoke with Rick a couple weeks ago, and he’s getting ready for a tour next year. It’s going to be the big Henry VIII Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a big tour. But he actually said to me he had some new music he wanted to have ready in a couple weeks, and I said, “Please,” because we might as well continue writing together, because we respect and love each other very much. And I’ll be doing an East Coast tour this April. That’s in the spring time. Keeping busy!
EXAMINER: Well, we miss you here in Cleveland. There are a lot of Yes fans in Ohio, and we haven’t seen you in these parts since you played with Liza Grossman and The Contemporary Youth Orchestra that second time, in 2010 or so.
JON: I actually spoke to Liza a couple days ago, because I’m writing with a young kid here—a young seventeen-year old guitar player. We’ve just written this composition for guitar and orchestra. But I’ve always stayed in touch with Cleveland in my heart. Last time I was there I was lucky enough to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the people there are magnificent. And who knows, Yes might even get in there one day!
EXAMINER: I know you and the other Yes guys have historically ambivalent about the Rock Hall thing, but the fans have always been for it. And apparently now there’s this big push—a petition—to help get you guys in. It’s called “Voices for Yes,” or something like that. It’d be nice to finally see it happen.
JON: That’d be wonderful.
- somit zutiefst ehrlich und im ernst. - schwelg...