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A man conceived a moment's answers to the dream,
Staying the flowers daily, sensing all the themes.
As a foundation left to create the spiral aim,
A movement regained and regarded both the same,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Changed only for a sight of sound, the space agreed.
Between the picture of time behind the face of need,
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Oh.
Turn round tailor,
Coins and
Assaulting all the mornings of the
Crosses
Interest shown,
Never know
Presenting one another to the cord,
Their fruitless worth;
All left dying, rediscovered
Cords are broken,
Of the door that turned round,
Locked inside
To close the cover,
The mother earth.
All the interest shown,
They won't
To turn one another, to the sign
Hide, hold, they won't
At the time
Tell you, watching the world,
To float your climb.
Watching all of the world,
Watching us go by.
And you and I climb over the sea to the valley,
And you and I reached out for reasons to call.
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
As a movement regained and regarded both the same,
All complete in the side of seeds of life with you.
Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time;
Insane teacher be there reminded of the rhyme.
There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify;
Political ends, as sad remains, will die.
Reach out as forward tastes begin to enter you.
Ooh, ooh.
I listened hard but could not see
Life tempo change out and inside me.
The preacher trained in all to lose his name;
The teacher travels, asking to be shown the same.
In the end, we'll agree, we'll accept, we'll immortalise
That the truth of the man maturing in his eyes,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
As a moment regained and regarded both the same,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
A clearer future, morning, evening, nights with you.
And you and I climb, crossing the shapes of the morning.
And you and I reach over the sun for the river.
And you and I climb, clearer, towards the movement.
And you and I called over valleys of endless seas.
Staying the flowers daily, sensing all the themes.
As a foundation left to create the spiral aim,
A movement regained and regarded both the same,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Changed only for a sight of sound, the space agreed.
Between the picture of time behind the face of need,
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Oh.
Turn round tailor,
Coins and
Assaulting all the mornings of the
Crosses
Interest shown,
Never know
Presenting one another to the cord,
Their fruitless worth;
All left dying, rediscovered
Cords are broken,
Of the door that turned round,
Locked inside
To close the cover,
The mother earth.
All the interest shown,
They won't
To turn one another, to the sign
Hide, hold, they won't
At the time
Tell you, watching the world,
To float your climb.
Watching all of the world,
Watching us go by.
And you and I climb over the sea to the valley,
And you and I reached out for reasons to call.
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
As a movement regained and regarded both the same,
All complete in the side of seeds of life with you.
Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time;
Insane teacher be there reminded of the rhyme.
There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify;
Political ends, as sad remains, will die.
Reach out as forward tastes begin to enter you.
Ooh, ooh.
I listened hard but could not see
Life tempo change out and inside me.
The preacher trained in all to lose his name;
The teacher travels, asking to be shown the same.
In the end, we'll agree, we'll accept, we'll immortalise
That the truth of the man maturing in his eyes,
All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
As a moment regained and regarded both the same,
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
A clearer future, morning, evening, nights with you.
And you and I climb, crossing the shapes of the morning.
And you and I reach over the sun for the river.
And you and I climb, clearer, towards the movement.
And you and I called over valleys of endless seas.
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"The Preacher trained in all to lose his name. The Teacher travels asking to be shown the same. In the end we'll agree, we'll accept, we'll immortalize. That the "truth" of the man maturing in his eyes. All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
And you and I climb, crossing the shapes of the morning
And you and I reach over the sun for the river
And you and I climb, clearer towards the movement
And you and I called over valleys of endless seas
These last four lines suggest our spiritual journey is a solitary one. The "you" is obviously "God" if that's what you want to call it and these metaphors describe the kinds of "Universal" things we'll be capable of once we attain "Self Recovery" as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda. It suggests that all beliefs and so-called religions are "attached". We (the world) just don't know that yet.
This is the spiritual life I have chosen for myself and the one Jon Anderson accepts and believes in as well. As far as I know he still does.
If you wish to study more of Anderson's lyrics and their meanings, I suggest that you research the man I mentioned above ( Paramahansa Yogananda) and the 11 principles this belief system is built on. You will certainly be enlightened by Jon Andersons incredible spirituality, wisdom and stature. You will come to a point of understanding and Self Discovery just as it teaches and what use to sound like nonsense will suddenly take on a new light.
He sings like an Angel for a reason.
It is something that I have I listened to for years, since I was a child of 15. I have bought it over and over in now 3 different mediums. I never knew the whole lyrics until reading them online recently( they are wrong on this site), much less a clue to the meaning until recently. ( I am now 45 ). Even now, I can barely hold the entire thing in my mind at the same time. The meaning to me, is likely a bit different than to the author(s) as each of us are different facets of the whole of all of us.
The song is very rich and touches upon the deepest part of our spirits. it contains metaphors predicting future events. I suspect that they may be near future events. You can access these yourself if you quite your mind and use your own insight. Then wake up and DIG for the truth. It is out there.
"Now that your whole, now that your fine." means what to do next after you reach a level of enlightenment.
"Coins and crosses, never know their fruitless worth". means,, to me, that religious symbolism and money, which is tied to the Templars, that now rule both the Christian Church and all of Banking are worthless in the eyes of God. These objects are merely that, they have no knowledge of the fact that they mean nothing. Living naturally and close to nature is all that matters. If we did that there is plenty for all of us.
"And You and I" is so beautiful because he is singing about everyone in the audience as well as about himself. It simply is another way of saying everyone.
We are ALL saved, no matter what we may believe. No matter what we do. We are WHOLE. We are ONE. We are FINE.
What a beautiful song.
Keep in mind that it has been at least twenty years since I read the trilogy so I'm going from memory and a couple of Internet synopses here, also that I'm likely taking a whole lot of liberties with my own assumptions based on the Asimov tie-in. Consider this as "IMO," not certifiable fact. Only the guys in the band would know that.
- "Close to the Edge" is a reference to the planet Terminus, situated at the edge of the galactic plane. It is home to the Foundation, an institution set up by a great mathematician named Hari Seldon to collect and preserve all of the current knowledge of civilization into a vast "Encyclopedia Galactica." [Note: Douglas Adams makes numerous oblique satirical references to the Foundation Trilogy in his hilarious "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series.]
Full synopsis: Seldon develops a way to fuse psychology and statistical mathematics into a science with which he is able to predict general socio-political trends far into the future, based on the fact that vast groups of people tend to move in predictable patterns over vast periods of time. I take "A man conceived a moment's answer to the dream" to be a reference to Seldon's grand plan, as well as the less-focused reference "...the man who showed his outstretched arm to space / He turned around and pointed, revealing all the human race." That sounds nebulous and facile, but it will become clearer later.
Based on observed trends, Seldon determines that the huge and seemingly-invincible Galactic Empire will crumble into barbarism within 300 years, resulting in a kind of Dark Ages that will prevail for 30,000 years beyond that before a second civilized Empire can arise. If all of civilization's knowledge is preserved, he determines, that huge period of barbarism can be shortened from thirty millennia to a single millennium. When he brings his findings before the Galactic government, they give it skeptical and begrudging acceptance - largely because of Seldon's reputation (he's sort of an Einstein figure whom nobody dares challenge.) But suspicious that he may be a covert revolutionary, the Imperial Government banishes him and his Foundation to a planet at a far edge of the galactic plane to do their work. That's where "As a Foundation left to create the spiral aim / A movement regained and regarded both the same" comes from.
Over the course of centuries, a series of crises befalls the Foundationers, therefore the future of civilization. They become known as "Seldon Crises," because at the climactic point of each, the people of Foundation are summoned to a huge auditorium to hear a pre-recorded video message from Seldon, now centuries dead, giving them general instructions as to how to proceed through the crisis at hand.
As andyouandi points out, the line "Coins and crosses never know their fruitless worth" is a reference to a couple of the early Seldon Crises. As a means of dealing with one of them, the Foundation sets up a religion - with the aid of technological "miracles" to impress some of the more Luddite planets' populations. The "crosses" and the lyrics to "The Preacher The Teacher" are references to the Foundation's religionists.
Eventually that tactic no longer works, so the Foundationers, again at the suggestion of a pre-recorded Seldon message, develop a sophisticated system of commerce and an elite class of traders as a means to supplant the waning influence of their bogus religion and to survive another set of crises. That's the "Coins" reference. Eventually the Mule's appearance (read on,) throws both the religious and economic plans out of whack - they "never know their fruitless worth." (The lyrics as voiced by Anderson are from the perspective of a detached observer of the grand, millennium-spanning spectacle.)
What Seldon's mathematics cannot predict, however, are the actions of individuals. A mutant human emerges on the scene, a man born with the ability to read people's emotions (but not their actual thoughts,) and to manipulate their emotions to a degree that allows him to basically force them to do his bidding without realizing they're being manipulated. As time goes on, the Mule begins to influence the actions of huge numbers of people, with the ultimate goal of launching a war on the Foundation. As such, Seldon's carefully-crafted plan is thrown into mortal danger:
"Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time;
Insane teacher be there reminded of the rhyme.
There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify;
Political ends, as sad remains, will die"
"Mutant enemy" and the foreshadowing reference "A seasoned witch" both refer to the Mule. The Mule is a gangly character with a deceptively-friendly demeanor, who disguises himself as a kind of court jester or clown to conceal his nature and power. He is also a talented musician on an instrument called the "visi-sonor." It's described as a kind of super-high-tech guitar-synthesizer that creates beautiful holographic images in the air around it that correspond to the music that's played on it. The Mule discovers that he can use the visi-sonor as a kind of powerful emotional amplifier that increases his telepathic power and allows him to manipulate emotions on a much larger and more persuasive scale.
Wakeman's keyboard cadenza between "I Get Up, I Get Down" and "Seasons of Man" is an interpretation of a Mule performance on the visi-sonor. It's followed by the first line of "Seasons of Man": "The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes," a clear reference to the visi-sonor in action. The opening lines of the album, again, are references to the Mule and the visi-sonor:
"A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar
Then taste the fruits of man recorded losing all against the hour"
Among any number of other emotions, the Mule can induce in a victim a deep sense of disgrace, with the course of action the Mule wants him to take being similarly induced as the antidote - the method by which he compels people to do what he wants them to do. Another reference to this is the chilling line "Reach out as forward tastes begin to enter you." Thereby he reaps the "fruit" - omnipotent power amid a crumbling civilization, "man losing all against the hour."
Other references to the Mule's performances and their relation to the fate of the galaxy:
"The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes.
A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man, so it seems
And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love
As song and chance develop time, lost social temp'rance rules above"
Unbeknownst to everybody, Seldon has set up a secret, Second Foundation - this group not comprising encyclopedists and historians, rather mathematician/psychologists like himself, further developing and perfecting his predictive statistical-psychological science, but also developing psychology itself into full-blown telepathy. At some point people discover hints and rumors of this Second Foundation, which is said to be located "at the opposite end of the galaxy" from the First. (I vaguely recall that Seldon himself may have openly stated its existence, but memory is hazy.) A frantic race ensues between the Mule and the First Foundationers, the former wanting to destroy it, the latter to seek its help in defeating the Mule. The line "I shook my head and smiled a whisper, knowing all about the place" is a reference to Arkady Darrell (read on,) who finally discovers the Second Foundation's location through logic.
The Mule ingratiates himself to a married couple - Toran and Bayta Darrell - and manipulates the mind of a great psychological scientist, Ebling Mis, compelling him to an obsession with locating the Second Foundation. The four of them travel the capitol planet Trantor (also Seldon's home, where the novel begins,) to pore through documents in the great library there for clues on the Second Foundation. The Mule secretly pushes and pushes Mis to find the answer, until the telepathic strain eventually puts Mis on his deathbed. He's finally discovered the Second Foundation's location, but just before he reveals it aloud, Bayta, guessing the "clown's" true identity, shoots Mis with a blaster. In subsequent centuries she's revered as a hero for her decision.
I always took the whole song "I Get Up, I Get Down" to be an ode to Bayta Darrell's awful dilemma: Kill a friend or allow him to inadvertently reveal the secret and enable the Mule's destruction of the Second Foundation and ascent to Galactic dictator. That may be a facile interpretation on my part, but the whole mood of the song matches her melancholy story perfectly.
The Darrell's granddaughter, Arkady, is a precocious and happy yet occasionally angsty teen. Her father and a group of conspirators are trying to locate the Second Foundation; one of them, Homir Munn, is on the run from the police (if I remember correctly, the First Foundation did not want people to find the Second and therefore made searches for it illegal.) Arkady is doing homework on a voice-to-print machine when Munn climbs through her open window to escape the police. She forgets she has the transcription machine running, and when Munn comes through her window she develops an instant crush on him and starts to flirt with him. Later her dad sees the transcript on the machine and chews her out for her rash actions with a complete stranger, despite the fact that Munn is a trusted co-conspirator. Hence:
"The truth is written all along the page
How old will I be before I come of age for you?"
She later stows away on Munn's ship when he sets out to the Mule's home planet to study the Mule's former palace. She narrowly escapes from that planet (its pervy ruler wants to make her his wife,) with the help of the ruler's mistress. Arkady impulsively goes to the capitol planet Trantor rather than her home world, wanting to follow in the footsteps of her famous grandmother. When she gets there she's essentially lost in the vast space terminal, and is befriended by a couple who are farmers(?) Arkady is excited by the huge capitol and, being 14, is rebelling constantly against any treatment she sees as condescendingly parental. I forget the specifics of the scene, but there's a point where she argues bitterly with the couple for coddling her, when they're only trying to guide her through the huge city. Hence:
"In charge of who was there in charge of me
Do I look on blindly and say I see... the way?"
Which makes "I Get Up, I Get Down" not just an ode to Bayta Darrell but also to her granddaughter. Stunning.
As far as I can tell, "Siberian Khatru" is the only song on the album with no direct references to the Foundation Trilogy. The lyrics in that one are exceedingly abstract, and the music sounds notably different from the rest of the album, almost as though it's a completely separate entity (yet within the same style.) When I listen to that song I imagine the references to "Cold reigning king / Hold all the secrets from you," and the specific, this-world references to "Siberia," "Luther" and "Christian changer" to be a very loose tie-in of the Foundation story with Earth history - but I concede that that is an extreme stretch.
I'm likely forgetting things here, but this has taken an enormous amount of time and I need to get back to my life. Lob your tomatos at will. :D
Enjoy!
n a 27 May 1996 interview with Elizabeth Gips on her show "Changes" (KKUP, Cupertino, CA), transcribed in the Notes From the Edge fanzine, dated 23 August 1996, Jon Anderson mentions that the song—indeed, the whole album—is inspired by the Hindu/Buddhist mysticism of Hermann Hesse's book Siddhartha.[2] "[We] did one album called Close to the Edge. [It] was based on the Siddhartha... You always come back down to the river. [You] know, all the rivers come to the same ocean. That was the basic idea. And so we made a really beautiful album[....]"