Don't Surround Yourself With Yourself!

Our Contributing Editor, Dave Slavin, says yes to YES, one of his favorite bands of all time. But bandmate, Jon Anderson, has been on his own for two decades and according to Dave, his music has never been better. In fact, there's one song that reminds Dave of his wife, Montie Slavin, and that makes Dave happy all the time. 

Jon Anderson of YES

“Don’t surround yourself with yourself, move on back two squares." IYKYK (I hate it when people do that, but since I am writing this, I CAN!). All-right, those lyrics are from the song “I’ve Seen all Good People! Your Move! All Good People” on the YES album from 1971 by the band, YES. 

If you don’t recognize the lyrics, you can hear a part of the song in the trailer for the new Tom Hanks movie, Here, “Cause it’s Time, it’s Time in Time with Your Time.” After Googling the song’s meaning, Wikipedia says it is an anti-war song. But to me, the song is all about Jon Anderson’s chess game in the pursuit of his wife. “Make the white queen run so fast, she hasn’t got time to make you a wife.” 

Profound lyrics? Not so much, but the song is so catchy and I like those quirky Jon Anderson lyrics. Jon recently released a new album called True. While I enjoyed his last album, 1000 Hands, this may be his best album in quite some time. In fact, to me, this is the best release from any artist in the last ten years!!! 

As a huge fan of the band YES, I happen to love Jon’s quirky lyrics and phrasings, and this album catches the spirit of YES with some epic, long form songs that made YES so unique. 

Jon hasn’t been with the band for over 20 years, but this album is “Truly” magical if you are a YES fan. Jon’s lyrics are not always grammatically correct, but always entertaining IMHO. The last song on True is a song for his wife, Thank God. “Thank God you’re here, thank God I’m home, thank God you’re in my life.” 

When I listen to it, I think of my wife. Thank you, Jon for the album and the lyrics. Nice. Really nice!

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