Episodio 181: Yes Owner of a Lonely Heart. Year 1983. English Version.

00:00:00 - Classics songs all time.

00:00:19 - Welcome to the best rock podcast in the world.

00:00:22 - In this chapter we are going to listen and comment on the song owner of a lonely heart by the band Yes.

00:00:29 - This group was never on the podcast, so stick around to enjoy this progressive rock group on Classic Rocks All Time.

00:00:36 - I remind you that you can follow us on Spotify, Amazon Music and Spreaker.

00:00:48 - Finding Classic Rocks All Time the most incredible stories and anecdotes.

00:00:55 - Musicians Bruce Dickinson want to see us and you know I mean first of all we love you know we love doing it it's it's really a kind of a privilege to be you know 51 years old I'm being able to go out just still to have a boy let me well it's felt and everything is called orgasmatron.

00:01:24 - Rod Halford

00:01:25 - I think are useful, just because of the fact that with what I try and do, it's important to try and...

00:01:36 - Eric Clapton and Paul Stanley

00:01:38 - The piano was inconceivable, I mean, you can't, you can't just go and buy a piano, or his guitar is much more accessible.

00:01:45 - I think I was very driven, period.

00:01:48 - It was to compensate, to make myself feel more worthy.

00:02:18 - This is a band formed in England in the late 60s by John Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony K and drummer Bill Bruford.

00:02:43 - In the 80s they returned with a hard rock style, moving away from the progressive rock that they had been playing in the beginning.

00:02:52 - This is the first single from 90125, and was the group's one and only number one charting hit.

00:03:01 - The album was a drastic departure from yes progressive sound in the 70s, containing distorted guitar and synthesizers that were popular at the time.

00:03:11 - With help from MTV, yes suddenly found a new audience, who were sometimes shocked to learn that much of their back catalogue consisted of complex pieces that would often run well over 10 minutes.

00:03:25 - John Anderson said that the company that produced the album wanted a hit and that it was promoted in the when it was finished.

00:03:32 - Lonely Heart was a curious cake with its footch-opening chords, delicate chorus harmonies, brick-beat flourishes, novel sound effects, and a guitar solo pause that could have fallen off the fretboard.

00:03:45 - Tom Rage Against the Machines Morello released in October 1983.

00:03:52 - Owner of Elle Only Heart was a true worldwide hit, reaching number 28 in the UK and number 1 in the US, and propelled this previously, esoteric band to the unlikely role of fast-moving

00:04:03 - MTV stars.

00:04:06 - Trevor Horn tells us.

00:04:08 - Well, no, that was, by that point, we had a Sinclavia, and there's a lot of Sinclavia.

00:04:16 - Which was what, probably?

00:04:18 - This was, which year was this, I know exactly, we started that album in 1982, and finished it in 1983, and we had this track for a long time, but it had a different song over it.

00:04:33 - And the song, as it originally was, was so awful that I was convinced, well, the verses of it were so awful, that I was convinced that if we didn't put loads of whiz bangs and gags all over the verse, no one would ever listen to it.

00:04:48 - I thought, because I always thought it was a hit chorus, you know?

00:04:52 - But when I first heard that song, the verse went, I mean, it'd give you some perspective.

00:05:00 - Trevor Rabin, who was a South African pop star, had joined, yes, he was a sort of brilliant guitar player and keyboard player, but as a songwriter he tended to go towards American kind of rock stuff, like, because when they wanted me to produce them, because you know,

00:05:23 - I'd been in the band as a singer, I'd replaced John Anderson for one year in 1980, which which was an incredible experience, never to be repeated because John Anderson sings so high and I can sing high, but I can't sing as high as John Anderson and not for as long.

00:05:38 - So I knew the band really well and in 1983 I just done Malcolm McLaren, I was really hot as a producer and my wife was furious with me for wanting to do yes, you know, it's

00:05:53 - It's like, yes, I've finished their old farts, you know?

00:05:57 - And who's interested in yes?

00:05:59 - But I always loved the bass player, you know?

00:06:02 - I was a bass player and Chris Guire, to me, is the only bass player who ever got away with playing melodic parts on loads of songs, you know?

00:06:12 - I don't think anyone's even come close to it.

00:06:16 - And so I wanted to do it, you know?

00:06:18 - I just wanted to do it.

00:06:19 - But I wasn't sure about the songs

00:06:22 - I went to Trevor Rabin's to to hear the songs for the album and he played me three or four and they were all the same kind I remember one of them moving in

00:06:31 - I'm moving my love into you that kind of love kind of thing and I've always been a bit allergic to love it's never been my thing you know and I was getting a bit good this is gonna be a bit of a drag how what am I gonna do about this what a yes gonna sound like playing that and Trevor Raven went to the loo and he left a tape machine going and this song came on and and the demo of it had that intro where it had a very powerful very powerful intro that did that sort of snap jump cut straight to don't boom boom boom with the drums right up in your face I think his intro didn't have drums on it just had guitar and I thought wow that's a good gag I like that gag that's a really I like the riff good tempo it's a good riff and then the song came in the song was you don't want to go dancing you won't even answer the phone you're so scared and romancing everything you do is alone you know it was that kind of thing try it's hard to please you give you all the love and I know I hated the verse and then he went owner of a lonely heart I thought that's good with didi didi didi and I said to him as he came out the toilet I said this is a hit song that's a hit chorus he said darling this song was not for yes I wrote it for somebody else I said no yes could do this song it's a hit song anyway we 901c5 we recorded all of the tracks apart from this one and they didn't want to do it and I had to beg them and you know when you've been a singer in a band you can kind of be

00:08:12 - You can kind of be funny with them, you know, and I was literally in the townhouse

00:08:17 - I was crawling around on the ground pulling in people's trousers saying please, please

00:08:23 - Have a go at this song

00:08:25 - We need a single, you know

00:08:27 - I'm a hot producer at the moment if I don't get a single, I'll be fucked, you know, please and

00:08:34 - And Chris was like

00:08:36 - All right, and we'll give it a go

00:08:38 - And we spent days with them trying to play it and they kept

00:08:42 - You know they you know it would the intro was fine, but once the track he wants the thing start

00:08:48 - They kept wanting to change the riff, you know down good on gun gun down down

00:08:52 - Don't bomb bomb jump saying come we just play it straight and simple

00:08:58 - Anyway, I said we got a program it

00:09:01 - We've got to program it and they were very against it because they'd never programmed anything in their whole careers and the drummer was really out of it, but I prevailed and myself and Chris Squire programmed a drum machine, you know, for the initial track.

00:09:20 - And Trevor Rabin's big friend was a guy called Mutt Langer. You know, if you don't know Mutt Langer,

00:09:25 - Mutt Langer is probably the biggest record producer that's ever been. He's the guy that produced

00:09:30 - Def Leppard, Shania Twain, you know, the cars, the Boomtown Rats, AC DC. And he's a kind of,

00:09:38 - He's a rock producer and he is what some people have imagined that I'm like.

00:09:45 - He's like Dracodian, right?

00:09:48 - He'll have a fist fight with a band if he can't get his own way.

00:09:51 - He's a tough guy.

00:09:52 - And Trevor had this idea that the drums on this should be big, like an American...

00:09:58 - Doof, like a big snare drum.

00:10:00 - And he kept trying to interfere in the engineering side of it and I kept trying to make the drums sound like that and driver me and Gary Nuts.

00:10:08 - Well hey Trevor, I hope you don't watch this.

00:10:11 - And so, when we came to do the drums, I said to Gary, all this shit with the snare drum tuned down, it's crap, it sounds dreadful.

00:10:22 - And it doesn't suit Alan.

00:10:24 - And I'd just been listening to Synchronicity.

00:10:26 - So Stuart Coblin, that's the sound.

00:10:29 - It's tuned Alan's snare drum. What key are we in A?

00:10:32 - So we tuned up to a high A, so we tuned his snare drum to a high A, and it was sort of that sound, and I loved it, you know?

00:10:41 - But I remember, you know, I was working in Sarmist, and it was a tiny control room, and in order to get to the toilet, you had to walk through the reception.

00:10:49 - And as I was walking through the reception, the whole yes crew was there, and I heard the Chief Rodi saying, playing fucking drums. Sounded like a fucking piano to barrel. I don't know what Trevor was up to. And then he saw me and said, oh, sorry, Trevor, how do you fuck off, Nunu? And they're staying like that. And even till, up till, you know, Armored Erdogan, the guy that ran

00:11:14 - Atlantic, heard the backing track because, because all of those little doodles, you know, bam, the little, we're originally on the demo, but they were playing on a a Minimoog. And I had a Fairlight and I had that Malcolm McLaren tape and I took that in and said, can't we use some of this? Instead of playing those things on a Minimoog, let's play them on crazy sounds. And it worked really well. I mean, it worked incredibly. And it took me I think from January of 1983 to probably July to persuade Trevor to rewrite the song and in the end he and I stayed up all night which we rewrote it about four or five times and ended about three o'clock in the morning I turned it to

00:12:00 - John Anderson for a minute and said I'm John Anderson I'm not singing that I want to sing something different and I started to sing move yourself you know that bit which I got 15% of the song I wrote the verses John Anderson didn't like it at all I mean he I said to him don't you know it's it's an improvement on the other tune and he said well it's not exactly sending the clowns anyway he was a bit rude about it and he said that he wouldn't sing my lyrics on the second verse because he didn't like them so he rewrote it and did the eagle in the sky white eagle in the sky and so me and Gary decided we shoot the eagle so if you listen there's a gun blast on the record it's us shooting the eagle white eagle in the sky but I'm a dirt again love love love the song. Trevor Raven kept trying to remix it with a big snare drum going doof and Armin Erlegan stopped it and made them put out our mix of it.

00:13:15 - Move yourself, you always live your life

00:13:22 - Never thinking of the future

00:13:25 - Prove yourself, you are the movie maker

00:13:30 - Take the chances when you lose a

00:13:33 - See yourself, you are the step you take

00:13:37 - You and you are nothing but a way

00:13:40 - Shake it, shake yourself

00:13:43 - You're every move you make

00:13:45 - So the story goes

00:13:48 - Over the lonely heart

00:13:52 - Over the lonely heart

00:13:56 - Over the broken heart

00:14:00 - Over the lonely heart

00:14:06 - Say it the one chance it

00:14:09 - You've been hurt so before

00:14:13 - What you now don't need to win the sky

00:14:17 - How it doesn't want to be

00:14:21 - You lose yourself, know nothing to say

00:14:25 - There's no real reason to be loaded

00:14:29 - Be yourself, give your free will a chance

00:14:33 - You've got to learn to succeed

00:14:37 - Order of a lonely heart

00:14:41 - Order of a lonely heart

00:14:43 - Better than the

00:14:45 - Order of a broken heart

00:14:48 - Order of a lonely heart

00:14:56 - Order of a lonely heart

00:15:01 - In my holy session they call you

00:15:04 - So I don't know where you're going

00:15:06 - So I don't know where you're going

00:15:08 - Baby, and you gotta go

00:15:11 - Baby, I don't know where you're going

00:15:13 - Don't you hesitate at all

00:15:16 - No, no

00:15:34 - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

00:16:04 - Today I will only hurt you

00:16:14 - Today I will only hurt you, that's better than it

00:16:18 - Today I will only hurt you

00:16:22 - Today I will only hurt you

00:16:26 - Today I will only hurt you

00:16:30 - Oh, no, I'm a lonely heart, much better than I was

00:16:34 - Oh, no, I'm a lonely heart, much better than I was

00:16:38 - Oh, no, I'm a lonely heart

00:16:45 - Oh, no, I'm a lonely heart

00:16:50 - Slowly, there's no other side that I will hide

00:16:55 - Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it, Just receive it,