My #13 All-Time Favorite Album: Close to the Edge by Yes

My #13 all-time favorite album, CLOSE TO THE EDGE, by the progressive rock band YES, took a long time to reach my full conscious attention.  I was fifteen in late 1971 when I heard my first Yes song on the radio: I've Seen All Good People.  At first, I thought the singer was a woman, but soon learned that it was Jon Anderson, who had a naturally high, feminine-sounding voice.  No matter, that song, a melodious first half and guitar-rocking on the back end, become for me my "song of the year".  In 1972, this progressive rock band, heavy on the keyboards, came out with the hit single Roundabout off their Fragile album.  Later that year they released their follow-up to Fragile, a critically acclaimed LP titled Close to the Edge.  It continues Anderson's singing and includes some wicked guitar and keyboard jams, along with a prolonged descent through what I've lovingly called the "rabbit hole" of musical and lyrical chaos.  Side One's opening track is the album's title: Close to the Edge...it turns out to be the only track, eighteen minutes in length. Opening with natural sounds including birds, it suddenly transforms into a wild, dissonant guitar jam before leading into Anderson's verses.  The song goes from one stage to another...a little past its midpoint begin my two favorite parts: the dreamy, slow "I Get Up I Get Down", followed by perhaps the jazziest, most versatile rock keyboard instrumental segment ever recorded, before the closing verses and final return to nature.  Whew, the amazing thing is that although my friend Barry from high school introduced it to me back in '73, I never got around to hearing the entire song until some twenty years later: Close to the Edge is my "song of the year" for 1993 and to this day ranks up there among my all-time favorite songs.  Side Two of the album contains just two tracks: And You and I and Siberian Khatru.  The former is a slow-moving, contemplative ballad about ten minutes in length while the latter is a faster-paced rocker.  The lyrics on this album, I believe, are deliberately vague in order to allow the listener to fashion his or her own interpretations, but Anderson said he was inspired for the song Close to the Edge by Hermann Hesse's book Siddartha.  Yes has had many member changes over the decades, but during those productive and inspired early 1970s, it was Anderson on lead vocals, Chris Squire on bass guitar, Steve Howe on guitar, Rick Wakeman on the keyboard and Bill Bruford on drums.  In their next two album releases the band would continue with ultra-long tracks...including Close to the Edge this would make six whopping album-side-length songs!  But trust me: Close to the Edge is the best one, and the two songs on the album's flip side...especially And You and I...are pretty doggone good as well.  Today Yes still exists, with Howe the only member on it from when they recorded Close to the Edge.  Anderson, Bruford and Wakeman are still around while Squire died seven years ago...

Next week: my #12 all-time favorite album...