Favorite Songs: #10 to #9

#10 Close to the Edge by Yes (from Close to the Edge, 1973)

This incredibly long song, lasting for more than eighteen minutes and spanning the entire first side of the album with the same name, is worth every second. It is a spectacle of sound, in my opinion the culminating work of Yes, a very talented band to begin with. There is nothing like it, before or after. Yes itself tried five other album-side-long pieces after Close to the Edge and only managed anything remotely as good with their beautiful At the Gates of Delirium from Relayer. Close to the Edge features, like most Yes tunes, singer/lyricist Jon Anderson’s high-pitched incomprehensible singing. It wasn’t that you couldn’t discern his words: they just didn’t make any sense! But to me, that’s part of the fun of listening to Yes. But the main attraction was keyboardist Rick Wakeman’s virtuosity. Yes showed off some of that skill in their 1972 radio hit Roundabout, but in Close to the Edge, Wakeman pulled out all of the stops in the wildest keyboard jam I’ve heard (toward the song’s ending). Within Close to the Edge, the tempo and melody varied greatly, but the transitions from one part to the next were done well enough to give the whole piece a feeling of coherence. This was a song that I first heard in the early-to-mid 1970s but did not fully appreciate until 1993, when I bought the CD and was astounded by it. Yes has gone through many member changes over the years. One time, they all got back together (two drummers, two lead singers, etc.) and did a critically-panned album titled Union. As far as I know, they’re still together in some form or another. Other songs of theirs that I like a lot are I’ve Seen All Good People, Yours is No Disgrace, South Side of the Sky, Heart of the Sunrise, And You and I, Leave It, and Changes.

#9 For My Lady by the Moody Blues (from Seventh Sojourn, 1972)

The first Moody Blues song I heard was their moderately successful mid-1960s hit Go Now with Denny Laine as the lead singer. This band didn’t take off in popularity, though, like their contemporaries the Who, the Animals, the Rolling Stones, and of course, the Beatles. Laine left the band (later to join Paul McCartney’s band Wings) and it looked as if the Moody Blues had little prospect for a successful future. But then Justin Haywood and John Lodge joined up and they began a flood of prolific creativity that enveloped all of the band’s members. They also were very adept at composing and recording off of a device, called the mellotron, which effectively simulated symphonic instruments. From 1968 through 1972, the Moody Blues recorded seven studio albums, every one of them a classic in my eyes (they recorded three in 1969 alone). My favorite of these was To Our Children’s Children’s Children from 1969, but my favorite song of theirs was For My Lady, a song written and sung by band member Ray Thomas, appearing on their Seventh Sojourn album and sometimes played on album-rock radio stations as a lead-in piece to their popular singles hit Isn’t Life Strange. Thomas’s contributions have always been my favorites of the Moody Blues. They usually have a whimsical though sometimes spooky feel to them that can be riveting at times. And For My Lady was one such time. From the time that I first heard it until now, I have loved it as one of my all-time favorites, being one of very few songs that I instantly deemed as being great. I think the Moody Blues are still out there performing and I wish them continued success. Some others of my favorites from them are Peak Hour, Nights in White Satin, Legend of a Mind, Lazy Day, Are You Sitting Comfortably, Floating, Out and In, Candle of Life, Nice to Be Here, One Step Into the Light, The Day We Meet Again, Gemini Dream, and Celtic Sonant. The Moody Blues, you may have concluded, is another band whose studio albums I have bought in their entirety. Because they’re such a good, quality band!

Next favorite songs: #8 to #7