For episode 3 of our podcast “An Embarrassment of Prog,” musical genius/obsessive Charlie Nieland shared his personal map of Yes’s four-sided magnum opus. If you’re listening to the record and feel like a little navigational charting of its many currents might be an aid to appreciating what “Tales” has to offer, look no further, but follow along with Charlie’s guide to the various themes and musical ideas as they are introduced, varied and reprised. At the end you’ll find a handy time-stamped rundown of the major themes as well. Enjoy!

From Charlie Nieland:

Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans can seem like an unending series of ideas coming at you, but what I’ve found with many listens is that there’s a tapestry of melodic themes that gives it shape; they come and go in different ways throughout all four sides. I’m always hearing more after years of listening; this is the first time I’ve tried to write them down.

These themes bring focus to what can sound like a lot of noodling and the dreaded “padding” that Tales is accused of. But for me, they yield incredible enjoyment. Yes is brilliant at call and response and they are doing it at a very deep level on Tales. It’s a musical conversation that continues throughout the 80 minutes.

This may help you enjoy the music or it may not. YMMV. I’ve read the arguments, even from fans, that the melodies are dumb and it’s not interesting that they are woven everywhere. But I think it’s what makes this a work of art. You can tell that much of it is pushed by Howe and Anderson. Those simple melodies give wonderful contrast and familiarity as they are incorporated into thematic movements via Anderson’s voice and Howe’s deft guitar phrasing. It gives the whole thing an emotional pull that all the members dig into, Squire, White and Wakeman, included.


ANYWAY, I’ve given the themes nicknames that may be confusing but this is, by definition, a work in progress. For example, in Revealing; Triumph: 01:36; Flutter 01:58; Steps: 05:00, Imperial guitar melody 12:34, etc.

I know there are even more resemblances and similarities than these. We’ll keep listening…

Tales Musical Themes

Revealing Science Of God – Dance Of The Dawn (side 1)

Opening Chant – hypnotic mantra reprised at the end of the song
Volume pedal guitar notes underneath hint at coming main Triumph theme, which arrives, synth-fueled, along with the full band at the climax of the Chant
Main guitar Flutter theme established, woven with moog ornamentation, the jumping intervals of which are recalled later at the end of “Ritual” (side 4)
Bass and drum punctuation theme established, followed by the bass line from They Move Fast at the introduction of
Talk to the Sunlight Caller vocal melody, itself a preview of the Out in the City theme later introduced in “The Remembering” (side 2) and developed into the Nous Sommes guitar theme from “Ritual”, followed by
1st introduction of Steps melody on guitar (stepwise major scale; short-short-long-long-long, etc.) leading into
What Happened To This Song — 1st verse/chorus song section – anthemic
The first descending notes of the chorus melody, “What happened…”, So-Fa-Mi, long-short-long, is a foundation that is further developed in the Imperial guitar theme, later in “Revealing”, and even more in the High the Memory and Relayer vocal melodies in “The Remembering” (side 2).
Steps melody developed more thoroughly on guitar in the break after each chorus
Starlight section – dark, tribal, electronic transitional passage with intense guitar – the last break briefly alludes to upward melody in Ritual guitar theme (side 4), followed by Steps melody featured on gentle volume pedal guitar, followed by a quiet refrain of the Triumph theme and then Steps on big Mellotron chords leading to
They Move Fast – verse/chorus song – uplift tinged with melancholy – much of this section is in ¾
Skyline Teacher passage (recap of Starlight) – piano lick quotes “Heart Of The Sunrise” (from Fragile)
Instrumental break – this energetic guitar-led section has its own themes based around a three-against-four rhythmic phrase heard in Starlight and Skyline, with modulating step-wise melodies building to a solo that climaxes with the Imperial guitar theme, a recurring, descending/ascending motif – (So-Fa-Mi-Re, long-short-short-long; this theme resembles the descending High The Memory vocal melody). It is answered with a briskly strummed Steps theme recalled as the section concludes — then Steps melody walks gently up to
Old Fighter’s Past – verse/chorus song – quiet, contemplative – Minor key sitar melody intro (with Major moog melody played on Mellotron underneath) then the Major moog melody is established, leading into each verse
Steps melody on guitar answers lines in 2nd verse “Young Christians see it”
Gentle Triumph theme on volume pedal guitar quote under final ”Old Fighter’s Past” vocal phrase leads to
Steps melody big time mellotron break
Then modulated, more Steps building with vocals – answered with Pentatonic Synth melody from “The Ancient” (side 3) and a fragment of Flutter guitar melody then
Big Keyboard solo starts with Major moog melody from Old Fighter’s Past and ends with rhythmic themes from Imperial guitar theme break
Walk back through sections, building up: They Move Fast recap, with Ritual guitar theme (side 4) playing counterpoint underneath (“we need love”) – then Flutter melody – climaxing with What Happened chorus vocal return – winding down with Chant return from intro (alongside Steps theme on volume pedal guitar)

The Remembering – High The Memory (side 2)

Intro – pipe organ arpeggios reminiscent of future song “Awaken” (from 1977 album Going For the One)
Silence Of Seasons song — pastoral – guitar and vocal theme are a derivation of Steps melody

High The Memory vocal melody – kind of a one-time-only chorus  – joyful – a derivation of Imperial guitar theme, and What Happened vocal melody. These two sections, in a slow 7/8, are subtly recalled, much faster in the Relayer theme later in “The Remembering”

Keyboard break – brief preview of Out In The City melody
Ours The Story elegiac song section — the descending melody is later incorporated as a bassline in the Don the Cap section followed by
Alternate Tune theme
 – containing a return of side 1’s They Move Fast, and it’s 3/4 feel; they cycle twice, gradually building to
Out In The City vocal theme – then answered by the Stand On Hills vocal theme
 – act as a new triumphant song section
Ritual guitar theme (side 4) directly quoted, but gently baroque with guitar and pipe organ, in the transition to first dreamy keyboard cloud section

Silence Of Seasons and Out In The City vocal recap then
 sweeping ethereal modulating ambient transition leading to
Remembering Keys dreamy theme, which alludes to High The Memory and the Imperial guitar theme. Hard cuts to
Don the Cap song — jangling Celtic reel – transitions out with Imperial guitar melody, leading to
Relayer song – This is a powerful re-interpolation of the Silence Of Seasons (listen for the 7/8) in a circular crunchy guitar riff that recalls the first phrase of the Remembering Keys theme, set against a driving rhythm section. The vocal melody for the Relayer hook is Mi-Fa-So  and back down Fa-Mi-Re, creating the same melodic color as High The Memory. It goes around twice with Don The Cap (both sections getting respectively softer then louder) before the powerful keys/guitar solo that recaps the actual Silence Of Seasons melody over fantastic bass and drums. Then climaxing with the Relayer vocal melody returning on keys as it crashes back into Stand On Hills
Extended Keyboard break – ambient swirling modulations, layered with guitar and bass
After the extended keyboard sequence, the final big return of Ours The Story (“Ours entrance we surely carry on”) into
Big time revisit of They Move Fast as They Move Time/Rainbows/Alternate Tune, with a brief recall of Bass and Drum punctuation and Flutter guitar themes from “Revealing” (side 1) before final vocal climax with Rainbows/Alternate Tune and one more flash of Flutter guitar to start the final solo
Remembering Keys theme end

The Ancient – Giants Under The Sun (side 3)

Intro – Marching Cymbals play Big punchy stops rhythm
1st slide guitar – establishes Ancient Triplet theme
Electric Guitar break foreshadows Angular theme
Ancient Triplet theme 2 leads to first instance of
Big punchy stops
 under expansive mellotron chords
As One With The Knowledge vocal melody arrives over chords, echoing Flutter theme (side 1)
Pentatonic Synth theme established – Sweeping motif over processional march with bass and drum punctuation
Big punchy stops — guitar throws in descending lick from the Flutter theme
 and lick from “Siberian Khatru” (from Close to the Edge)

Pentatonic theme continues
Big punchy stops – guitar throws in Angular theme
Sun Theme section – urgent 6/4 time with guitar/melloton recalling “I just can’t believe they really mean to” vocal melody from They Move Fast (side 1), alternates with Sun chant vocal theme and Ancient Pentatonic Synth/tron theme

Angular theme, full band, appears briefly and only once
Sun Theme continues, ending with single punchy stop into transition featuring high repeated bass note, gong/bell and tense mellotron strings

Out In The City and Steps melody quoted by guitar in the transition
Electric guitar solo – expansive 3 part cycle, getting weirder and more intense – featuring slide then conventional electric
The Ritual guitar theme (side 4) can be heard in the ascending phrases of the first part of the guitar solo; Flowering Creativity theme is gradually hinted at, and then fully stated at the climax of the solo, which finally comes to rest with punchy stops.
Flowering Creativity vocal theme introduced with acoustic guitar after the ending of the solo, sounding very medieval
Classical Guitar theme established – the opening melody has similar upward stepwise motion to the first phrase of Ancient Triplet theme and features a quick quote from Close To The Edge (Thanks to Joey Wise for pointing this one out in the Yes Facebook discussion group)
Leaves Of Green song arrives – acoustic melancholy hymn
Classical Guitar theme recapitulated
Slide guitar transition—joyful recap of Triplet theme 2
Big stops return for end, final upward guitar hints at upcoming Ritual guitar theme

Ritual – Nous Sommes Du Soleil (side 4)

Bass Intro based on Ritual vocal chant theme
Ritual guitar theme introduced (arpeggiated melody related to Steps theme)
Punctuation theme on bass and drums and Steps theme on keys from “Revealing” (side 1) underneath
Answered with Out in The City theme on keys
Ritual vocal chant theme established — joyful wordless vocal melody – Drum pattern reminiscent of the Relayer theme from “The Remembering” (side 2) – now in a compound meter, 5/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4. Finished off with brief fiery bass break.
Spacey transitional section—sequence of LOTS of themes on guitar—Steps, Minor Old Fighter’s Past, Close To The Edge, Pentatonic Ancient, Ritual guitar theme, Flutter, Triumph, Imperial, Out In The City themes morphing into
Nous Sommes guitar theme introduced, derived from Out in the City theme
Nous Sommes Du Soleil vocal theme established, building to
Life Seems like a Fight
 verse/chorus song section – wistful sitar-drenched Beatlesque pop song
Triumph theme as a bridge before 2^nd verse “maybe we’ll just stand a while”

Soul Constant/At All coda crescendo leads to

Bass theme return, then propulsive bass solo based on Ritual vocal chant—breaks it up with a quote of Ancient Triplet theme
Guitar enters with Silence Of Seasons melody and its own intense solo over tension-building chord changes leading to a hard stop climax. Hard cuts to
Drum War — two-part section, cycles twice, featuring constant 8^th note metallic strikes with Indonesian gong punctuations. First section features a drum kit solo; second section is a driving tribal groove for tympani and kit. There’s a purely rhythmic restatement of the Flutter theme in the first phrases of the drum-triggered synth in the second half (Thanks to Peter Smorodin for pointing this one out in the Yes Facebook discussion group)
The big rhythm motif at the finish is derived from the Ancient Triplet theme
Gentle guitar solo transition out — descending Flutter theme, rising Ritual guitar theme (maybe a little Ancient?), arriving at Nous Sommes guitar theme
Nous Sommes vocal theme returns now a gentle verse/chorus song with some extra development
Piano motif that answers “And course our way back home” and the final Nous Somme Du Soleil vocal refrain recalls the Pentatonic Synth theme from “The Ancient” (side 3)
High piano notes also recall the moog ornamentation from the beginning of “Revealing” (side 1)
Finale – guitar climax revisiting Ritual guitar theme, Flutter theme, Steps theme over angular modulations that recall the chord changes under the solo before the Drum war
Minor key ending with a final little volume pedal guitar hint of Steps melody


Footnote: What Happened To This Song, Imperial guitar theme, High The Memory, Remembering Keys theme, Nous Sommes Du Soleil vocal theme are all related via a phrase in common: downward stepwise melody, So-Fa-Mi-Re, with a long, shot, short, (long) note duration

Time Index:

The Revealing (Original version – without newer extended intro):

Opening Chant: 00:00
Triumph: 01:36
Bass And drum punctuation theme: 01:55
Flutter: 01:58
Talk To The Sunlight Caller: 03:04
What Happened To This Song section: 03:35
Steps: 05:00
Starlight: 06:52
They Move Fast Song section: 09:45
Skyline Teacher: 11:07
Imperial guitar melody: 12:34
Old Fighter’s Past Song section – minor key sitar melody: 13:04
major moog melody: 13:48
Moog solo: 16:40
They Move Fast recap: 17:39
Flutter return: 18:58
What Happened return: 19:05
Final Chant: 19:44

The Remembering:

Intro Pipe Organ: 00:00
Silence Of Seasons Song; guitar and vocal theme: 00:14
High The Memory vocal melody: 01:34
Ours The Story vocal theme: 02:36
Alternate Tune theme (”they move fast”): 03:04
Stand On Hills vocal theme (I reach over…): 05:41
Out In The City Vocal theme: 06:09
Remembering Keys theme: 08:11
Don the Cap: 09:14
Relayer Theme: 10:42
Extended Ambient Keyboard: 15:48
Ours the Story/Alternate Tune Return: 17:40
Final Keys Theme: 19:53

The Ancient:

Intro Cymbals: 00:00
Ancient Triplet theme: 00:47
Ancient Triplet theme 2: 03:00
Big punchy stops: 03:41
As One With the Knowledge: 04:17
Pentatonic Synth theme: 04:41
Sun Theme: 06:08
Angular theme: 07:04
Guitar Solo: 09:01
Flowering Creativity theme: 12:31
Classical Guitar theme: 12:53
Leaves Of Green song: 14:42
Classical Guitar theme recap: 17:04
Triplet Theme 2 Recap: 17:45

Ritual:

Bass Intro: 00:00
Ritual guitar theme: 00:19
Ritual vocal chant Theme: 01:46
Spacey many themes guitar transition: 04:03
Nous Sommes guitar theme: 05:26
Nous Sommes vocal theme: 05:30
Life Seems like a Fight song: 06:50
Soul Constant/At All Coda: 09:45
Bass Solo: 11:11
Guitar Solo: 13:35
Drum War: 14:21
Nous Sommes return song section: 17:40
Finale: 19:57

Copyright @2023-2024 Charlie Nieland
Reproduced here by permission of the author, All Rights Reserved

Lace up your fringed boots, grab your favorite woodwind and your ticket for the Renaissance Faire: this week, Charlie, Henry, and Bill dive into the anti-cool heart of prog rock via a pair of mid-70s Jethro Tull masterworks: 1974’s “War Child” and 1975’s “Minstrel in the Gallery.” Turning from the hyper-extended musical excursions of “Thick as a Brick” and “A Passion Play,” the band’s return to song is also an introduction of spikier melodies and tighter conceptions. Discussed: dressing in doublet and hose, loving (or hating) the movie Time Bandits, a word to the wise about choosing “Bungle in the Jungle” at Karaoke, and an alternate universe in which a certain glam rock icon replaced Ian Anderson on vocals.

You can find and follow An Embarrassment of Prog on your favorite podcast app:

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Sailing the Topographic Oceans of a musical obsession that never got anybody a date, three friends revisit the Genesis of their Yesterdays, from the Court of the Crimson King to the Thickest of all Bricks, from Peter Gabriel dressed as a sunflower to a flautist who proved that “Dickensian rat-catcher as rock god” was a viable career option. Henry Tenney, Charlie Nieland and Bill Tipper invite you to join them on a triple-disc, extended-Mellotron-solo journey through the astounding, perplexing, (sometimes) agonizing Embarrassment of Prog.

New episodes will be posted weekly here. You can also subscribe on the podcast player of your choice: Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, with more (including Apple) coming shortly.

Episode 1: Enter Wuthering
Charlie, Henry, and Bill begin their journey into wild musical excess with a voyage to 1976 London, as the band Genesis records its first album (“A Trick of the Tail”) after the departure of its flamboyant lead singer Peter Gabriel and follows it up with the most Englishly-titled album in rock, “Wind and Wuthering.” Discussed: the music of loss, putting your overture at the end of a record, Phil Collins’s big moment, maybe having a little too much synth freedom and a hidden jukebox musical.

Not long ago, when the Amazing Sargasso appeared on the Charming Disaster Quarantine Livestream, the Conduit of the Pre-Born was asked if his name was connected to that famed oceanic region the Sargasso Sea.

Now, the simple answer here is that time and causality, for one so intimately and indeed uncomfortably connected with beings of pure Potentiality such as the pre-Born, are more mixed up than a sloppily assembled taco salad at a subpar fast casual lunch establishment. Which came first: the Sargasso or the Sea?

The question, to use a phrase Sargasso himself would happily take credit for if he could get away with it, is moot: indeed, as soon as the question was put to the great Hypnosticator, his answer came straight away: the Sargasso Sea must be restored to its rightful place as the oceanic home of the Hyooallergenic Insittute, the (planned, if not actually constructed) raft-borne “workhouse of the seas” in which the valuable salts and trace elements of Thalassa herself can be sieved and strained from the deeps, repurposed in the production of Sargasso’s Health-Giving Balms and Unguents.

But how to ensure that this fertile “kelp-basket” is truly controlled, cradled, cosseted and coralled by the forces of Embrightenment? A mighty mission of deliverance from — well, that part isn’t entirely clear but let it pass for now — from SOMEONE must be mounted. A WAVE of LIBERATION will rise. A writhing wave. An unstoppable, slithery mass movement of the most noble and doughty creatures who have ere been called into service by human kind.

Thanks to the discovery by an intern on a “tonic bender” of the specific frequency for Total Eel Energy Maximization or TEEM(TM), an array of “Ray Boats” (also known as the Ray Array or the Array Ray or, informally, as the Ar-Ay) scour the open waters, sending the TEEM beams into the deep on a powerful broadcast system cunningly devised from surplus football-shaped clock radios. When these rays encounter an eel’s nervous system they instantly excite that eel’s “rage gland” and fill the creature with the lust for battle. The creatures naturally link up their electrical brains to the broadcast system and begin secreting “battle goo,” a natural unguent that calls others of their kind into the war-swarm.

Thus, the ancient dream of mankind—to control eels and make them into an unstoppable weapon of conquest—has been achieved, not through foolish ritual but through the advances of Hypno-Science.

COMING SOON: The secrets of the Eel Armada!

There is a particular appeal and romance to writing on a bright screen in a dark room.

I once heard an acclaimed novelist talk about his composition method. He said he wrote for several hours a day, sitting in bed, but to avoid the interference in his thought or internal narration — maybe to avoid the temptation of returning to the sentences he’d already written — he didn’t work on a laptop but using a wireless keyboard linked to a computer on the other side of the room. So that he was not seeing the words on the screen as they were summoned by keystrokes. The sentences would simply scroll on upward or directionlessly away on the page in the mind.

I’m not quite a solid enough touch typist to feel entirely comfortable doing this — I can look away from the screen for a bit, particularly within a moment of “flow,” (I just tried it now for a moment — “particularly” got badly mangled on the first try, and having to find those quotation marks sort of stops me in my tracks), but it doesn’t take long before I feel lost without the orientation of paragraph of the page.

Making a paragraph feels good; it can have a shape-in-hand, a bit like when you’re working dough for something like rolls, and you get to the point where each piece that you pull and make into a ball comes quickly into something like the right heft; proportion is an underrated aspect of our sensory equipment, the not-always-precise but astonishingly real ability to eyeball and hand-weigh something to match a purpose or a previous model.

Of course I don’t like my paragraphs to come out the same size like a tray of dinner rolls; I want them to be like bake-sale brownies, unfairly cut into stingy end-pieces and overly-generous, underbaked center squares you’d just as soon eat, secretly, before wrapping the rest for school. It bugs me, frankly, that the paragraphs in what I’ve written so far are too evenly-sized.

School is where we learn to make paragraphs, where we learn about topic sentences and then examples that elucidate the topic sentence, and then…frankly I can’t remember, precisely. But the point is that nobody, nobody tells you in school that words on the page are also visual things, that a page full of paragraphs can be like a sky with an interesting set of clouds, and that (here’s some sacrilege) sometimes it is not in service of meaning, but in trying to give the eye something pleasing.

Maybe clouds in the sky — which after all never hold their shapes for long — is the wrong metaphor. What about the visual delight of an archipelago in an atlas? The eye flies over the islands as it traverses the map of the writer’s thought. (Getting a little grandiose, but who doesn’t like an archipelago?)

I think about the novelist and wonder what paragraphs are to him? Do they have size and a sense of weight in the same way that they do for a writer who is keeping an eye on the blocks of text on the page? Maybe in revision he spots their masses the flow, works like a sculptor to bring out the shape hidden in the grain of marble? Or maybe he just doesn’t really give a shit about paragraphs? Most of the good writers I’ve worked with as an editor work like hell to make each sentence do precisely what they want it to — to fly off the wrist and make its arc and return with just the right swoop or terrifying plunge.

I began this — sitting here in the dark, writing into the bright waiting screen — thinking about the strange way that heightens my sense of both aloneness and intimacy, in this strange moment when we’re all so much alone and so distantly intimate: a self-seduction into a state of communion with a wholly imaginary reader. Much of what plagues me, as a person who writes, or wants to have written, or hates his own writing, hates and fears the moment of commitment to the page, is feeling that others have found something important to say, something real to move from the world to the Word. I’m grateful to the screen, to the shapes of the paragraphs that it allows me to make here, for giving me, at least for a moment, some relief.

If you are a bot and run across this lonely and neglected corner of the Internet, please know that housekeeping has been alerted about its sad state.