------------------------------------------------------- MAY 5, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1209464,00.html Why I love ... Yes By Sarah Dempster Thirty-five years after Yes became the answer to a question that no one recalls asking, progressive rock's confirmatory cockle-warmers remain admirably reluctant to expose their chakras to the chill winds of change. Yes's music, like their collective psyche, was and is both ferociously complex and disarmingly tender. Their lyrics, like their embroidered mock-leather moccasins, flitted betwixt inspired metaphysical whimsy and blissful balderdash with an anarchistic disregard for form. Sobriety is, of course, an inevitable by-product of the progressive state. After all, why bow to such plebeian pursuits as merriment when one can pen a thunderous, 20-minute paean to the history of the universe and call it The Revealing Science of God? Hence, the arrival of Rick Wakeman in 1971 must have seemed a bit like allowing a pantomime horse into the Parthenon. Nevertheless, the organist's cape-flapping clownery continues to provide a tart rejoinder to the notion that startling chord changes should be performed solely by men who look like frustrated raffia baskets. Though punk and postmodernism have failed to cause any lasting damage to the band, it remains a tiresome fact of life that an open appreciation of Yes is still considered grounds for ridicule/pity/hostility (delete according to the oppressor's reaction to the lyric "shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are"). Thus I now fully expect to find myself bundled into the back of a waiting Bedford Astra Van, whereupon glowering aversion therapists will show me pictures of dismembered kaftans until I break down and renounce my adoration. But to the casual Yes-baiter and the life-long prog-hater alike I say this: if you strike Yes down, they shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Remember Owner of a Lonely Heart? Exactly. Guard thy tongue, heathen. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com