Back Off, Jerk: Yes – ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’

If prog-nerds were a rougher bunch, there would be a lot of busted noses over Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans. (OK, there may have been a jousting kerfuffle over this album at a Renaissance fair, but that’s about as crazy as we proggies get. We’re not punks, after all.) The album was released in 1973, following three artistic and commercial juggernauts for the band: The Yes Album (1971), Fragile (1971), and Close to the Edge (1972). Before the album was recorded, original drummer Bill Bruford was replaced by Alan White. White is an excellent prog drummer, but Bruford can be transcendent. He can also be domineering, and his heavy hand would have been a bad fit for this music.

Detractors — many Yes fans among them — have denounced Tales’ grandiosity and baggy spirituality. Supporters have celebrated its Wagnerian dimensions and taken its message as a way of life. I’m not about to put this album alongside “Die Walkure,” but I will say that it is a beautiful and uniquely expansive achievement in rock music that warrants a good weekend of listening.

Before diving in, I think it is important to identify some common prog-rock pitfalls that this album avoids. Although the “conceptual” focus of the music is singer Jon Anderson’s exploration of Eastern spirituality, the album is not weighed down by a convoluted story line as is the case with Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Also, Tales is not really an attempt to play classical music with rock instruments, which often sounds trite — at least to my ears. I guess we could call each of the four tracks tone poems, but the band doesn’t seem to be striving for classical form, nor does it “rockify” classical compositions the way Emerson Lake and Palmer did with Mussorsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

Lastly, conventional wisdom says that prog-rockers take themselves too seriously. Closer scrutiny reveals this to be false. Canterbury scenesters Caravan always peppered their compositions with punny titles and lyrics, and Ian Anderson has admitted that Jethro Tull’s Thick as Brick was really just a musical pastiche held together by a pseudo-backstory. Say what you will about Yes’ spiritual solemnity: You can go as deep as you want into Tales without worrying about the band laughing at you all the way to the pub.

So what do we have here? Four expansive tracks that hold your attention remarkably well. When I first purchased this album, I figured I needed to do the prognerd version of jury duty. I would sit through the entire album, note a few memorable passages, and lament that these passages were swallowed up by vastly dull soundscapes. Then I would render my judgement: Tales was an album rife with squandered potential. But a funny thing happened. There was no lamenting — no gnashing of teeth. I thoroughly enjoyed Tales from Topographic Oceans.

There are a couple reasons why these long songs are so co captivating, and the first is Jon Anderson’s singing. I’ve never been enamored of Anderson’s lyrics — the ones that get stuck in my head vaguely suggest spatial relations (“Upside down, Inside Out” from “Perpetual Change,” “Long Distance, Run Around” from the tune of the same name, and “I get up, I get down” from “Close to the Edge”). Anderson is not the storyteller Peter Gabriel was when he was with Genesis or the agrarian philosopher that Jethtro Tull’s Ian Anderson has always been, but he can write better melodies than either of those chaps. His swooping and soaring melodies tie the more ambient strands of this music together.

The second reason why this album holds my attention is the fantastic and varied guitar work of Steve Howe, one of the few rock guitarists who does not lean on jazz chords or blues riffs. He has developed his own musical vocabulary that extends from classical music and the English folk tradition. When on electric, he plays clean lines that remind me of the rigorous discipline of Buddhist yogis. When he gets on an acoustic or steel guitar, he evokes a down home feel. Howe’s wide vocabulary forges Tales‘ expansive sound.

The opening track, “The Revealing Science of God/Dance of the Dawn,” has an inauspicious beginning. You get the obligatory ocean waves followed by dulcet but unremarkable tones from Howe. Then Anderson delivers weird prog-robotic singing, sort of like if Siri started chanting directions to Starbucks in 11/7 time. But then, Rick Wakeman plays a majestic theme on his synthesizer, and Anderson’s melodies take hold. Howe’s guitar filigrees float down, pick up a spoonful of grit, and soar off again.

Next, “The Remembering/High the Memory” showcases the full palate of Yessounds. Howe is heard on electric and acoustic; a third of the way in his unplugged plucking takes the band near folky Zeppelin territory. Anderson’s voice is on sustain mode, and his “And I do think very well” brings this Rube Goldberg contraption to a near stop periodically throughout the song. Wakeman’s keyboards remind us that we’re listening in on the 1970s, but not in a bad way. Bassist Chris Squire is here, too, but in a less aggressive mood.

“The Ancient,” the third track, boasts a polyrhythmic percussion pattern that points the way toward “Changes” (from 1983’s 90125) and a Zappa-esque solo from Howe. I hear hints of Ravel’s “Bolero” — a kind of sensual, polyrhythmic march broken up by crashing guitars and basses, which I assume represent the footsteps of this lumbering “Ancient.” Somewhere in the middle Howe goes into a delightful acoustic flamenco bit. Placed as it is in this spacy environment, it reminds me of following Luke Skywalker into that desert cantina and hearing those space-cats swing like mad. The song ends a bit abruptly with one of the aforementioned crashes. (Note: On the original album, this crash must lead right into the final song, “The Ritual/Nous Sommes Du Soleil.” However, I have the remastered CDs, which separate the songs on 2 CDs.)

The kitchen sink arrives with “The Ritual/ Nous Sommes Du Soleil.” Howe offers some pomp and circumstance on his guitar, Anderson throws in a nifty vocalese part, Squire finally has his say in a finger breaking bass solo, and White anticipates the Grateful Dead’s post-1978 concert drum sequences. Oh, yeah, Jon Anderson sings in French, snippets of Frere Jacques float through the ether, and Howe plays a sitar somewhere along the way. (The sitar bit and a few other moments on “The Ritual” point again to 90125 — I guess in Yes’ universe, if you go over the edge of progressive rock, you end up rubbing shoulders with pop hits.) I’d like to say this final track is the Lebowski rug of Tales, but it doesn’t quite pull the album together. Still, the highpoints of “The Ritual” are worth sticking around to the end.

But none of this matters, right? Tales from Topographic Oceans is still self-indulgent sludge spread thickly over two LPs. Well, if I can’t reach you with words, maybe numbers will help. The four songs on Tales run between 18 and 22 minutes. By contrast, “You Don’t Love Me” off of The Allman Brothers’ much revered At Fillmore East album clocks in at over 19 minutes, while “Whipping Post” is nearly 23 minutes and “Mountain Jam” from Eat a Peach is over 33 minutes! Have mercy. The Velvet Underground’s much loved “Sister Ray” drones on for over 17 indulgent minutes. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Personally, I’m a listener who enables musical indulgence. Life without headphones is overrated, anyway.