A rare performance of "Final Eyes" from The BIG Tour, 11/14/87.
As a band, Yes - and the incarnation which I choose to comment upon in this blog - was never particularly direct regarding the subject of human desire in their songs most of the time. As a lyricist Jon Anderson focused primarily on cosmic concerns and his lyrics are often incredibly metaphorically dense. But then that all changed, at least somewhat, with the appearance of Trevor Rabin, who was no stranger to love songs in the course of his career.
For evidence, consider "Changes" from 90125, which on the surface seems to be about the last days of a romance. But Trevor doesn't always write about what we think he's writing about (in a 1989 interview he noted "sometimes I edit my lyrics down, when I go a little inside myself or get too self-indulgent"), and in past interviews he's stated that the song is really about the career chaos he was experiencing at the time he wrote the song - in the early 1980s - as well as concurrent world issues.
As quite a fan favorite in the YesWest catalog, the song "Final Eyes" from Big Generator is an interesting example of a merging of aesthetics, expected or otherwise. On the surface it is a love song, or rather, a breakup song - perhaps a song in which the protagonist seeks to attempt to avoid that terminal destination. On an album which contains a number of musings about love and sex, it developed in an entirely different direction from its' original work-in-progress version (which can be heard on the bootleg compilation The Alternate Generator) but it's quite possibly the first true example of this version of Yes emulating the classic sound. Given Jon's expanded role in the songwriting (but not as involved as he would have preferred, the resultant power struggle a primary motivation for his departure after touring concluded in 1988) it's not so unusual as much as interesting to consider how and why the elements combined in the end result.
"Final Eyes" is really two songs in one, and if you listen carefully you can see - or rather hear - the seams.
Trevor expressed his reservations about the track back in 2003 when interviewed by Mike Tiano:
TR: "Final Eyes" I don't think quite worked...
MOT: Really? I like that song.
TR: No, I like it, but I think it could have gone further. I think more could have been done. I mean, there's a part where I kind of cringe a little bit, because... how do I put this politely, but it starts sounding a bit like Journey, which I mean I've liked a lot of what they've done, but I don't think it's right for Yes to sound like Journey.
And I understand what Trevor means by that, but I would say he is the greatest offender in that some of his soloing in the song sounds more than a bit like Neal Schon from a tonal perspective. The song itself is far more developed that anything Journey was doing at that time. As I noted some years back in a particular discussion at Yesfans, Trevor had been approached in 1984 to co-produce a Journey album (which would have been Raised On Radio - a production apparently fraught with as many difficulties as Big Generator, and the band ended up utilizing engineer Jim Gaines as an associate producer) so one supposes there was at least a sympathetic stylistic vibration happening on some level.
"Final Eyes" was the third single from Big Generator, going as high as number 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, which definitely supports its' particular charm among listeners. I believe one of the best things about the song is its' title, it's so evocative and relational - I imagine any number of us have either looked at someone or been looked at by someone through final eyes, that moment when you know a relationship has reached its' end. It's a question I think would be interesting to ask Trevor: did this clever phrase just come to him out of the inspirational blue, or did he hear it from someone else, and was it something he carried around in his brain for a while, or was it an immediate assignment to a particular musical idea? Because the initial foundation of the song is his, a song Trevor presented to the band which then was elaborated upon by Jon with different verses, though in the original idea the refrain is sung by Jon in a sort of call-and-response type of arrangement. Musically there were further contributions by Chris Squire and Tony Kaye. Just slightly shorter than the two "epics" of the album - "Shoot High, Aim Low" and "I'm Running" - it features the same stylistic philosophy of those tracks in terms of the structure of the arrangement and dynamics of the overall sound. But when I consider the song, I think of it more in terms of the mood it means to convey rather than the subject of the lyrics. During the musical interlude which begins at 4:47 I never fail to feel as though I'm walking in a sunlit glade, the air itself shimmers around me and the possibility of encountering the fae is never far from my thoughts. In other words, a typical Andersonian experience.
In the final "Final Eyes" we are greeted with beautiful acoustic guitar and Jon's high clear vocal which is then augmented with New Age-y percussion and keyboard textures as well as harmonies. After the second verse and chorus, the song then takes a turn into what was the original version, so in the transition at 1:37 you can hear the exchange between Jon and Trevor, as the phrase begins with Jon's voice and ends with Trevor's, you can actually hear the key change at about 1:41. The figure Trevor plays on guitar is exactly the original chord sequence, and frames his refrain, though in the original the transition is the same, just less pronounced. It creates the same dynamic we hear in other tracks (most notably "Shoot High, Aim Low"): the marriage of earth (Trevor) and air (Jon).
And this consideration is as essential an aspect of what made YesWest successful as any other: Trevor's deliberate creations of juxtaposition between himself and Jon within the arrangements, contrasting both their vocal and compositional styles. I tend to think "Final Eyes" is an especially obvious example of this strategy in that it takes what was a somewhat anthemic song about a rift of some kind (and knowing Trevor as we do, it's not necessarily a romantic one) and transforms it into a musical statement which borrows from both old and new to create its' evocative landscape. And also a song which is truly, deeply far more romantic than its' origins suggest. The mix of the primal and the ethereal is entirely wonderful.
And then there is that bravura transition at 3:32 which is admittedly a bit of studio trickery but still quite thrilling to hear.
It's an interesting consideration that Jon's musical persona could inform the arrangement of a song, but it is apparent to me that Trevor might have been crafting the mood and movement of "Final Eyes" to encompass those musical values which Jon represented not only within Yes, but his career as a whole. And thus much of what fans may love about the song is also what reminds them of why they love Yes. Critic Mike McGuirk referred to the track as "an effective throwback to the band's salad days."
As an aside, I've always found the line "Don't hide behind the headlines (oh yeah)" reminds me of this famous montage from Citizen Kane, which depicts the evolution, and disintegration, of a marriage within the microcosm of the breakfast table.
The song was only played four times early on in the touring cycle, and the best things about the live version are - in my estimation - the beginning, which features a sort of overture to the song rather than starting from the same point the studio version does; and the end, where Trevor has a little more space to play his lovely ride-out. Some of the most beautiful guitar parts on Big Generator are also the most brief, on record the coda of "Final Eyes" is a little over 20 seconds. But ultimately most of BigGen's more expansive songs proved to be too unwieldy for live performance.
