Music Monday (Yes/Fly From Here, Side 1)

So even though Yes's last album at this point was in 2001 (Magnification), they still constantly toured every year. I saw them myself once or twice during that time period. However in 2008, a tour planned for summer was cancelled when Anderson suffered acute respiratory failure. As they were preparing to head back to the studio, they decided not to wait on Jon (a dick move on my part) and replaced him with Benoît David, the lead vocalist in a Yes tribute act Close to the Edge.

That's right, they replaced him with someone from a tribute band! Journey says hello...

To produce the album, Yes recruited good ole Trevor Horn. Remember him? The guy from The Buggles? Yeah, they went back to him again. Mind you, this is 30 (!) years after Adventures in Modern Recording! Horn's involvement with the new album also involved a major contribution to the songwriting, which drew heavily on two songs which he'd written back in 1980 with Geoff Downes (who, like Horn, had also been a member of the 1980 Yes lineup). You remember all that right? Good. There will be a test later...

So back when The Buggles offered Yes that demo song and then ended up in the band, did you ever wonder what happened to that song? Well after Yes disbanded in 1981, Horn and Downes resumed work as The Buggles and recorded another demo of it, this time as a two-part composition. It was a candidate for inclusion on Adventures in Modern Recording and was eventually featured as a bonus track on the album's 2010 reissue.

These two demos and a third (which has not been released) would become the basis of the 2010 Yes tracks "We Can Fly", "Sad Night at the Airfield", and "Madman at the Screens". All of these were put together (along with other parts) as a larger composition called Fly From Here, which covers the entire first side. It also gave the album its name.

Roger Dean y'all!

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The Music

Fly From Here (Full Suite)

1. Overture 0:00 - 1:53 Geoff Downes is once again the keyboard player for Yes.

2. We Can Fly 1:54 - 7:54 The main song obviously. I never liked how the flow just stopped with the "on the understanding" part.

3. Sad Night at the Airfield 7:54 - 14:35 This is actually my favorite part of the whole thing. It's just eerie and empty and lonely feeling. And of course some acoustic Steve Howe.

4. Madman at the Screens 14:36 - 19:52 I like this one too. Very moody.

5. Bumpy Ride 19:53 - 22:08 Just a plain funky instrumental.

6. We Can Fly (Reprise) 22:09 - 23:53 I never thought this flowed well from the last part to the finale. It was like bam here it is again.

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This also had an edited single and an actual video that went with it. The "Hollywood mogul" on the plane is Trevor Horn.

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