MUSIC AND RELIGION Prognosis: Yes and Genesis

"I'm not really interested in music; 

music is just a means of creating a magical state"

-Robert Fripp (Macan 1997: 66)

Let's face it, "progressive" rock (aka "prog") often gets a bad rap. It can be seen as self-indulgent, deliberately bewildering, pretentious, and sometimes downright silly. For the record, the same could be said about some modes of classical music. Nonetheless, I love it! I always have, since I first started seriously listening to music. It's precisely the ambitiousness of the themes and the spectacular musicianship that draws me in. For sure, it's  definitely not for everyone, but I believe it's more than worthy of careful consideration. As we might expect, like most genres of popular music, religious and spiritual themes sometimes find their way into the 20-plus-minute-epicness that characterizes the typical prog opus.

One band for which this holds true is the British prog-rock mainstay Yes. Formed in 1968, in the midst of sixties psychedelia, Yes soon found themselves at the vanguard of a wave of groups that sought to "progress" rock music beyond its bluesy origins and incorporate more folk and classical elements. Thematically, this also meant leaving behind the "baby I love you" lyrical tropes of the fifties and sixties and dealing with more complex themes. As such, images from science fiction and fantasy were brought to bear, as well as elements of emerging spirituality. Early Yes albums like Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge (1972) set the template for much of what would come after. Fragile, for its part, contained masterful tracks like "South Side of the Sky" and "Heart of the Sunrise," as well as more whimsical fare like "We Have Heaven." Close to the Edge in turn pushed the prog-rock envelope with its title track clocking in at over 18 minutes. Side two contained the slightly less ambitious "You and I"--a mere 10 minutes! What's notable, however, about this track is its apparent spiritual optic, with part III of the song listed as "The Preacher, the Teacher" and part iv entitled "The Apocalypse." Clearly there's an aspiration for something higher. 

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.

At least one author has described Yes's music as "liturgical", noting progressive rock's use of organ and choral arrangements as evocative of the religious music of the Anglican and Catholic churches (Macan 1997: 66). This may not be too far from the truth. Peter Gabriel (see below) has recalled the powerful effect of religious hymns on him and his classmates during their school days (Gallo 1980: 14). The grandiosity of religious music clearly shaped the sonic sensibility of him and many others. 

In 1973 we have an album in which many observers believe that Yes had finally "jumped the shark." This ambitious (some might say self-indulgent), four-sided magnus opus contains only four tracks: 

1) "The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)" 
2) "The Remembering (High the Memory)" 
3) "The Ancient (Giants under the Sun)" 
4) "Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)" 

All of these running around 20 minutes each. Once again, by means of the titles, we can see the obvious, if somewhat opaque, spiritual interest. 

Now, one of the things that perplexes some listeners is the impenetrability of singer Jon Anderson's lyrics. I'd be hard pressed to claim that I actually "understand" any single Yes song. Yet, it seems to me that this is precisely the point. The apparent absence of meaning, by way of free-form word association, creates a space for meaning. The listener gets to decide what significance to bring to the tracks. The only limits are the individual's imagination, stimulated as it is by the rolling sonic landscapes underneath the words. Anderson himself has readily acknowledged this, saying "sometimes I'd just use a series of tantalisingly-sounding words, but sometimes I'd get deeper into meaning and statement...I've had incredible conversations and get letters from people telling me what they think my words are all about. Who know? Maybe they're right" (Macan 1997: 70).

To take but one example from the album's opener:

Dawn of light lying between a silence and sold sources,
Chased amid fusions of wonder, 
in moments hardly seen forgotten, 
Coloured in pastures of chance dancing 
leaves cast spells of challenge,
Amused but real in thought, 
we fled from the sea whole.
Dawn of thought transferred through 
moments of days under-searching earth
Revealing corridors of time provoking memories, 
disjointed but with purpose,
Craving penetrations offer links 
with the self instructors sharp
And tender love as we took to the air, 
a picture of distance.
Dawn of our power we amuse 
re-descending as fast as misused
Expression, as only to teach love 
as to reveal passion chasing
Late into corners, and we danced from the ocean.
Dawn of love sent within us 
colours of awakening among the many
Won't to follow, only tunes of a different age.
As the links span our endless caresses 
for the freedom of life everlasting.

What on earth could such words possibly mean!?! Anything and nothing. Topographic Oceans has been said to evoke "a mystical general ecology where humans and all other life-forms live harmoniously together" (Hegarty and Halliwell 2011: 80). Yet, as the liner notes explain (let's remember albums used to come with packaging, artwork, and explanatory information): "The Revealing Science of God can be seen as an ever-opening flower in which simple truths emerge examining the complexities and magic of the past and how we should not forget the song that has been left to us to hear. The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear." Indeed the knowledge of God is a search, often through confusion and obscurity. The song invites us, as an "ever-opening flower," to enter into a reflection on this mystery. To discern the "simple truths" and "magic" that permeates the words and music. In this way, we are not simply passive listeners, but are asked to engage the imagination (chemically enhanced or not), to go on an inner journey through a "topographic ocean" of possible meanings and hopefully arrive at some insight. 

***

Another prog band equally known for its obscurity is Genesis. Long before their polished 1980s pop period, Genesis were among the most impenetrable proggers. Fronted at the time by the enigmatic Peter Gabriel, they too could sometimes delve into the mystical and supernatural. After all their first release was titled From Genesis to Revelation (1969). Formed in 1967, the English band followed the same trajectory as Yes. Over the course of several early albums their songs becomes more ambitious and lyrically esoteric. 1970's Trespass sees the band delving into mythic territory with "White Mountain" and "The Knife." Next comes Nursery Cryme (1971) and Foxtrot (1972), featuring their own early epic sound-poem "Supper's Ready," clocking in at 23 minutes and divided into seven parts:  

I: "Lover's Leap" 
II: "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man"
III: "Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men" 
IV: "How Dare I Be So Beautiful?" 
V: "Willow Farm" 
VI: "Apocalypse in 9/8" 
VII: "As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet)" 

In the case of "Supper's Ready" the religious connotations are clear. As Gabriel would say in a later interview, the song represents "a personal journey which ends up walking through scenes from Revelation in the Bible….I’ll leave it at that" ("Rockline", 92.3FM KROCK, NYC, 16 June 1986). The surrealist lyrics testify as much, with references to "the guards of Magog" and "666," "Lord of Lords" and "King of Kings," culminating in a vision of the New Jerusalem. Pretty heady stuff, even in the universe of prog. Gabriel was apparently immersing himself in Zen philosophy at the time and was also influenced by Bunyan's spiritual classic Pilgrim's Progress (Easlea 2014: 105).

The band then moved into the heights of esoteric religiosity with their much debated concept album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway* (1974). Called the "Ulysses of Concept Albums," it has infuriated, delighted, and baffled. The "story" is centered on a character called "Rael," who goes through a series of bizarre and hallucinogenic experiences in New York City involving his brother "John," a woman named "Lilith," three "Lamias," and Death itself. Part tale of sexual awakening, part spiritual revelation, it ends with the following enigmatic words:

When you eat right through it you see everything alive
it is inside spirit, with enough grit to survive
If you think that its pretentious, you've been taken for a ride.
Look across the mirror sonny, before you choose decide
It is here. It is now
It is Real. It is Rael
'cos it's only knock and know all, but I like it...

Taken for a ride indeed. 

Regardless of what these songs and albums may or may not actually mean, the prog-rock spiritual program is definitely a product of its time. We see a deep desire for experimentation, an embrace of ambiguity, and a blurring of traditional boundaries; all impulses characteristic of the late-60s, early 70s cultural atmosphere. It's even been said that in this period music served as a "ritual means of transporting listeners into other realms of consciousness" (Macan 1997: 66). At a time of disenchantment with traditional forms of religion, "the music took on the function of prophetic revelation; hallucinogens provided a rite of entrance into the mysteries of the temple" (Macan 1997: 68). As such, since the music is reluctant to attach itself to any kind of definitive "message," we are nonetheless invited in to seek for something deeper, to apply our own hermeneutic to the encoded sound and word. In the end, we just might find ourselves illuminated and called to co-create a prog-rock gnosis of our own. 


*I hope to deal with this album more extensively in a future post. 

Works Cited

Daryl Easlea, Without Frontiers: The Life and Music of Peter Gabriel (London: Omnibus, 2014).

Armando Gallo, Genesis: I Know What I Like (LA: DIY Books, 1980). 

Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell, Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock Since the 1960s (New York: Continuum, 2011).

Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (Oxford: OUP, 1997). 

Jon Michaud, "The 'Ulysses' of Concept Albums," NewYorker.com, February 28, 2014 (accessed 2016 10 08).