{"id":2881,"date":"2015-10-19T22:12:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T04:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=2881"},"modified":"2015-10-19T22:28:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T04:28:17","slug":"todays-jam-yes-awaken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=2881","title":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s Jam &#8211; Yes Awaken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The song Awaken by Yes has been coming up in conversation a lot in the past several months. I ran into Paul from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rT3O8Cc7iII\">Upsilon Acrux<\/a> at a show downtown and we got to talking about Yes. We both agreed that Awaken was our favorite song by them. The other day I was eating dinner with a music student at CalArts and we got into talking about Yes, and Awaken was brought up again. Today I was riding my bike to my therapist (a 45 minute bike ride) and Awaken came up on shuffle. Every time I listen to this song I have a borderline religious experience. I realize everyone knows who Yes is, so I&#8217;m just sharing my enthusiasm for this track because it&#8217;s been present in my life lately. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/98-iBpbEbNk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The real transcendent meat of the song begins at 5:10 with chord changes and melodies\/lyrics  climbing higher and higher into mystical and emotional territories that no other band has achieved. When I listen to this song I don&#8217;t understand what other bands or songwriters settle for. <\/p>\n<p>I once said this to a person who I&#8217;m not talking to right now: &#8220;Punk is a good place to start, but it&#8217;s a bad place to end up&#8221;. That&#8217;s my subjective opinion about music and I still like a small handful of punk and post-punk bands (like Camberwell Now, who might as well be labelled as prog). Anyway no offense to punk enthusiasts, which I used to be, but I have a hard time drawing a parallel between rigorous literature, rigorous cinema, and this backwards ideology that demands music resemble nursery rhymes and forsake ambition. How do you reconcile sitting around talking Pynchon and then putting on a Kurt Vile record? I can&#8217;t! (I realize Kurt Vile is a bad example since he resembles 3rd rate Bob Dylan more than punk music, but he still embodies that vapid simplicity, and lack of giving a shit that bores the fuck out of me.)<\/p>\n<p>You could definitely call this track overwrought and blustery, and I wouldn&#8217;t be able to argue with that. But if you allow the intention of the song to envelope you on headphones, I think the emotional and compositional magnitude will take you to higher realms! Which is what music should do I believe. <\/p>\n<p>Just watch Jon Anderson&#8217;s adorable dancing on stage at the orgasmic crescendo from minute 18:15 on. Through the power of music, Jon manages to reach God and dance with him. It&#8217;s incredible! <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YLk5FfR464Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s also lovely is that this video took place in 1977, the year that punk broke into England&#8217;s consciousness and essentially invalidated every monstrously great band that came out of that region for the next 25 years or so. That is until the early 2000&#8217;s when prog started creeping into indie rock sort of, with groups like USA Is A Monster, and Don Caballero etc&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Master of things. Master of light.<br \/>\nSongs cast alight on you. All pure chance.<br \/>\nHark thru dark ties. As exists cross divided.<br \/>\nThat tunnel us out of sane existence. In all encircling mode.<br \/>\nIn challenge as direct. Oh closely guided plan.<br \/>\nAs eyes see young stars assemble. Awaken in our heart.<\/p>\n<p>\nMaster of soul. Master of time.<br \/>\nSet to touch. Setting sail.<br \/>\nAll impenetrable youth. Over all of our lands.<br \/>\nAsk away. And as we look.<br \/>\nThat thought be contact. Forever closer.<br \/>\nWith all thats clear. Shall we now bid.<br \/>\nBe honest with yourself. Farewell, farewell.<br \/>\nTheres no doubt, no doubt.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The song Awaken by Yes has been coming up in conversation a lot in the past several months. I ran into Paul from Upsilon Acrux at a show downtown and we got to talking about Yes. We both agreed that Awaken was our favorite song by them. The other day I was eating dinner with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2881"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2885,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881\/revisions\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}