‘Close To The Edge’: A Track-By-Track Guide To Every Song On Yes’ Magnum Opus

With incantatory zeal, Jon Anderson finally emerges with a philosophically cryptic opening line – “A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace” – which he wrote to coax his soul from the darkness to discover his higher self. “I’d actually been reading books at that time by Herman Hesse, which was Journey To The East, Siddhartha,” Anderson later explained, “and these are very enlightening books for me.” Intoned with a poetic and enigmatic flourish, Anderson’s abstract wordplay evokes Hesse’s nature-oriented locus before culminating in the song’s main refrain (“Close to the edge, down by the river”).

“The river was the sort of the pinnacle of the book,” Anderson said of Hesse’s influence, “where he realised that the river is like the soul. All of the rivers meet in the same ocean.” As the song leads us to the estuary of Total Mass Retain, the second part of the Close To The Edge suite, Anderson seeks to impart cosmic truths with urgency over Squire’s springy bass work and Bruford’s taut rhythm. Alternating between Mellotron and Moog, Wakeman adds an orchestral depth that ebbs and flows like ocean tides. Speaking of Total Mass Retain’s lyrics, Anderson explained: “It’s got this deep, sad feeling for the mass rape of our planet, for the evilness that creates the wars.”

Eventually the song segues into the airy splendour of its third movement, I Get Up, I Get Down, a tranquil moment of stillness in which Anderson’s falsetto echoes like a distant choirboy singing in a vast cathedral. As Anderson critiques organised religion (“How many millions do we deceive each day?”), Wakeman’s soft keyboard tones drip like rain droplets from a gothic spire until the caped keyboardist unleashes a breathtaking pipe-organ solo that clasps for the divine. Lifting listeners to the heavens, the I Get Up, I Get Down section of Close To The Edge evokes the sacred feel of religiosity, and yet, as Anderson explained to Circus magazine in February 1973, its lyrics are “rejoicing in the fact that you can turn your back on churches and find it within yourself to be your own church”.

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This is largely why Wakeman’s dextrous theatrics give way to a frantic Moog solo, metaphorically “destroying” the church in order to usher in Close To The Edge’s closing section, Seasons Of Man. Before long, Wakeman’s fingers race across his Hammond organ in yet another dazzling solo, and the band lock into a thrilling instrumental gallop. Concluding this 18-minute epic by dredging up the album’s opening soundscape, Anderson’s quest for transcendence finally reaches its end, his soul now carrying the wisdom he has gained along the way. “We’re on this journey and the only reason we live is to find the divine,” Anderson would later tell Martin Popoff. “To find God from within.”

And You And I

Unfurling from Steve Howe’s delicate plucking of a 12-string acoustic guitar, the sunny harmonics of the four-part suite And You And I have the feel of a mystic folk ballad composed by the ancients. Like a life-giving spell being cast, the ping of a triangle on the opening part, Cord Of Life, summons Chris Squire from the song’s womb with a warm, pulsing bass groove, giving life to Jon Anderson’s ethereal cries as he once again voices a cosmic mantra (“A man conceived a moment’s answers to the dream/Staying the flowers daily, sensing all the themes”). With his every word shimmering with poetic heft, Anderson paints a picture of a world in which umbilical cords are cut and yet we remain “locked inside the mother Earth”, his wordplay swirling around the spiritual vacuum of existence.

Gliding in with a golden melody, Rick Wakeman’s Minimoog signals the start of the song’s second part, Eclipse, by flinging listeners skyward in a celestial surge of sound. As if approximating the sound of an angel spreading its wings, Wakeman’s cinematic upswing sounds as if a God-given prophecy is about to be imparted, particularly when Anderson’s falsetto spills forth (“All complete in the sight/Of seeds of life/With you”). As the energy subsides, the song gives way once again to the intimacy of Howe’s 12-string, softly bringing us down to earth.

Still seeking answers, Howe’s pastoral, bluegrass-infused acoustic guitar work on part three of And You And I, titled The Preacher, The Teacher, accompanies Anderson as he nurses the spiritual longing in his heart, turning to authority figures for wisdom. “I listened hard but could not see,” he sings over a country-inspired rhythm. “Life tempo change out and inside me.” In the end, Anderson sees through the façade of power and status, lamenting the rise of self-serving politicians and how they fail to genuinely help the people. Throughout, Howe’s twangy picking and Wakeman’s fleet-fingered Fender Rhodes add rustic warmth before Wakeman unleashes another ultraviolet burst of Minimoog.

And You And I’s closing section, Apocalypse, offers a reprieve, as Anderson draws upon nature for a series of haiku-style affirmations delivered over Howe’s folky acoustic guitar. From reaching over the sun to the river, or calling out over valleys of endless seas, its a calming, zen-like summation of desire lurking in the human spirit, all of which makes And You And I a seamless continuation of Close To The Edge’s themes of enlightenment and self-discovery.

Siberian Khatru

Not one of Siberian Khatru’s eight minutes and 56 seconds are wasted. A violent interplay of ice and wind, Close To The Edge’s closing song sees Yes cut loose with a virtuosic blizzard of white-hot musical chaos in a barren Soviet wilderness. While Steve Howe’s blistering guitar work and the slosh’n’sludge of Chris Squire’s bass whip up a prog-rock hailstorm, Bill Bruford’s crisp drumming cuts like tiny daggers and the howl of Rick Wakeman’s stabbing Mellotron rings in our ears. As the song thaws, the band settle into a toe-tappingly funky groove, Howe’s sharp, twisting riffs leading listeners into new, uncharted terrain.

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The crackle of musical originality on the song is a true marvel, and from this point on Siberian Khatru weaves some unexpected textures: Howe’s electric sitar adds a frostily exotic twist while Wakeman’s harpsichord dances like Evenki tribespeople around a campfire. “The song builds and builds and builds and builds,” Anderson later told MusicRadar. “You’re taking the audience on an epic adventure. People think it can’t get bigger, but it does.”

Lyrically, Anderson adopts a painterly and impressionistic approach on Siberian Khatru, choosing words for their sound rather than their explicit meaning. Uttered spontaneously in the studio, the word “Khatru” is believed to mean “as you wish” in Yemeni, seemingly carrying Anderson into a dreamlike stream-of-consciousness. He hints at the vast remoteness of the Cold War-era landscape (“Even Siberia goes through the motions”) and intones cryptic phrases like a windswept shaman (“Bluetail, tailfly, Luther, in time”), all of which makes the song a vivid and fantastical flight of fancy.

Then there’s a sudden shift in mood during a slow interlude dominated by the chill of Wakeman’s Mellotron, which conjures an air of cosmic intrigue as Anderson sings of “green leaves” revealing “the heart spoken Khatru”. As soon as these words leave the singer’s lips, Bruford’s metronomic hi-hat leads into us yet another rollicking verse, with Anderson’s voice soaring once more over a groove of stormy intensity, each musician pushing the song forward with icy finesse.

Siberian Khatru’s tension-filled final passage, on which Anderson’s rapid-fire wordplay fuses evocative imagery with percussive cadence, ratchets up the layers of acoustic guitar, bass and Bruford’s snare drum before a brain-melting three-part-harmony chant plunges us back into the song’s main riff. As Close To The Edge’s finale nears, it’s clear that Siberian Khatru is Yes at their most limber and light-footed, the group vamping their way into a final, euphoric guitar performance from Howe that rounds off a fittingly powerful conclusion to one of the greatest progressive rock albums ever recorded.

Buy the super-deluxe edition of ‘Close To The Edge’.