Awaken

Jon Anderson: While I was in Switzerland I had a chance to read a book called The Singer, it's about this Star Song which is an ageless hymn that's sung every now and again and that inspired this song.

The book is The Singer by Calvin Miller. It's an allegorical Christian novel. Fabulous song, beautifully uplifting. the High Vibration part was actually the first to be written and played as a short piece.

To me it's about the actual experience of the ascension of the human soul to heaven and the lyrics are the ascenders own words as he tries to describe the experience. If you want power and majesty youv'e got it right here.

Jon Anderson's lyrics are heavily dependent on the music. He uses words or phrases because of how they sound in conjunction with the music. That said, this is about the book "The Singer" as Jon has said. But also, for me, it is about timeless oneness with my wife and a willingness to forgive and be forgiven. That allows our love - or the love of any - to rise above mere mortality. 'Reaching out to touch my own being' and 'like the time I ran away..." are essential lyrics. 'Impenetrable youth' were me and her laying around in my room some 30 true summers ago. 30 years of loving past our human imperfection. When we renew our marriage vows Awaken will be essential music. This song means more to me than any other ever will.

Like the time I ran away and turned around and you were standing close to me

Whenever I hear these lines, I can't help but imagine that it is spoke by a man who's taken all the bad life that he can, so he runs away, only to find that the woman who loves him came with, to support him and love him no matter what.

But as I read the other comments on this song, it appears that Jon had a very religious experience in mind, so replace the woman with God and you've got it. Maybe I can make a hymn out of it.

Just in case that anybody still looks in here once in a while, there is a really beautiful new version, sung by Jon with a symphonic orchestra and a big choir in Island on Youtube: search for "Awaken" - Jon Anderson & Todmobile 2013"...

It has been posted by (apparently) Jon Anderson himself, and the version is extremely well performed and even better sung, with lots of grandeur (always at the verge of a tiny little bit too much, but that's just what his music is about :-) anyway a great recent occasion to send shivers down every Yes fan's spine. Like mine :-)

The first time I heard Awaken was live at the Chicago Amphitheater in 1977.
Wow. I was in high school and working as an usher at the concert. About halfway through the opening band, they let us go for the night. So we changed back into our street clothes, and went back to an area where we knew there was some space. About this time, I was just figuring out the piano and all the cords. I was also a major fan of the Who, who were all about 'chord patterns'. But the came Awaken, which Awakened me to real music. The first part did grab me, with the back and forth theme. The music itself seem to say, "I keep going through the same shit. Go up, and then cascade down to where I started." It's all in minor chords. But then they wander into some major chord, and the music takes a turn for the more positive. But then it pauses for the middle part. This involved a floating triangle in the dry ice smoke taken around by Jon Anderson, and they had a killer laser light show going on, which you never see when you just listen to album. (Trust me, it was killer on hooch.)
The music then got more intense. It seemed almost menacing.
But then it seemed to want to try to resolve itself. Be happier.
When the lyrics "Master of Things, Master of Light.." start, it becomes a glorious piece. The major chord progression slowly starts to be ingrained, but then quickly going into crescendo.
But then it backs off, and Wakeman starts his Church Organ Solo. As an aspiring keyboard enthusiast, I was enthralled. Again, similarities to Close to the Edge, but unique in its own way.

But they were just building up to the big ending, the chord progression to God.

I still wish they would have played it more than once on the album, because they played it about 3 or 4 times in concert. I was reading the Simarillion at the time, and it seemed to me that I was listening to Ainulindalë, the musical creation of Middle Earth. That's how much it rocked my world.
It inspires me until this day. There have been time when that has made me cry, it's so perfect.

Thank you Yes. To me you sit with Beethoven as composers, and you set the standards by which all other contemporary musicians of your time should be judged (if that's actually necessary) on your respective instruments.

Oh, and Jon Anderson is perfect too. Yes is perfect, all the way from Awaken to 5% of Nothing.

But then for a real Bill Bruford album, one must turn to Red by King Crimson. Immortal stuff.

These were truly gifted musicians who inspired me to this day. What was it about the time period between 1964 and 1974? God descended to earth and touched so many.

I think my interpretation is that he's just wrote a 15 minute song about awakening from a host of different things, but most important, the organ soloing (i think Rick Wakeman) was totally sweetness!

To me it's about the actual experience of the ascension of the human soul to heaven and the lyrics are the ascenders own words as he tries to describe the experience. If you want power and majesty youv'e got it right here.

But the book, and that song have to carry a meaning, we all are here becous of that, do we not? So we see a 'workings of man' in not to gloriuos light, and then is, as i think, an attempt to elevate from it, something like prayer for help, and good advices to achive ascention, to regain that place mentioned at the begining of that song. Right now im trying to translate it, but some parts sounds like words just being senslessly put together. can somone tell me what the master of light part means?