Tuesday, November 07, 2006
something that has nothing to do with democracy...
I have a friend who does not like the band Yes. This isn't just your garden variety dislike either, it's hatred, pure and simple. I mean, when we were commuting to college together, he'd blow his top ten minutes into the twenty minute epic The Revealing Science of God off Tales from Topographic Oceans. I never understood it. He would start this low growl, look at me over the top of his Yoo-Hoo chocolate soda, and glare at me until I changed it to something else. I would concur with his wishes all the time, because, well, we had to ride together to school for 30 minutes each way, every day. I was just interested in keeping the peace.
Perhaps it's Jon Anderson he doesn't like. Maybe it's the way Anderson affects the persona of a robe wearing New Age pendants hanging hippie religionist? It's possible, but I have evidence that Anderson is not a New Age religionist. Witness these lyrics from three quarters of the way through the song Close to the Edge, off the album Close to the Edge:
I get up
I get down
I get up
I get down
I get up
I get down
To me, these are not the lyrics of a new age hippie layabout, but lyrics written by someone who has been to many MANY Evangelical church services, wherein getting up, and getting down, is required quite often throughout. This getting up and getting down business is the reasoning behind the nickname "popcorn church" that is often heard from snickering youth.
Perhaps my Yes hating friend doesn't like the way keyboardist Rick Wakeman (now occasional organist on TBN) twiddles the keys of a grand and loud pipe organ just after the getting up and getting down bit during Close to the Edge? Maybe it's the fact that he looked like a wizard on stage during the 70s, and looks like a pedophile now. To be sure, Wakeman was one of the more flamboyant of the band members during the 70s, but people can grow up, right?
Maybe he didn't like the way Steve Howe couldn't get things going fast enough on the song And You and I? All that twiddling about on the strings of his guitar for almost a full minute might have driven my friend mad with anticipation. Maybe my friend didn't like that odd crunchy and bouncy sound that Howe affected on most of Yes' music? Maybe he just didn't like his hair?
Maybe he just didn't like Chris Squire's three headed guitar? Maybe he didn't like how Squire moved to California and caused infighting in the Yes group because he thought he could own the name.
Maybe my friend just hated the fact that I had a friend named Allen White.
Or maybe, just maybe, my friend has a deep seated hate for Yoko Ono. Because of the story? You know the one? Involving the word "Yes" and how she met John Lennon? Yeah, that story. I maintain, however unfounded my belief is, that this story is where Yes get's their name. Perhaps this is the reason for my friend's disdain.
I suppose, in the end, I'll never really know what it is about "Yes" that sets my friend to growling in his Yoo-Hoo. I've asked him, and he's vague about it, so I suppose it'll remain a mystery forever.
