My Top 1000 Songs #679: I've Seen All Good People

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

As I traversed the "every-teen-boy-in-the-70s-must-undergo-a-lonely-prog-phase" part of my life, moving from Genesis to King Crimson and beyond, I drew a hard line in the sand at Yes. Didn't care for Jon Anderson's tenor vocals; the music (especially on those LP-side-length suites) was self-indulgent even for prog; and the Yes fans in high school, the ones who doodled the band's logo all over their notebooks, seemed particularly off-putting.

But sometime in my late 30s/early 40s, I gave them another shot and surprised myself by finding much to like (at least in that classic 1971-1972 Yes Album/Fragile/Close To The Edge run, though I'm ok with some of the music before & after). "I've Seen All Good People," off the Yes Album, was one of the tracks that helped win me over. The harmonies are lovely, the acoustic guitar in the initial half is entrancing, and the harder-rocking later segment, while (like a lot of their music) a bit overlong (though manageable at just under seven minutes), is still catchy and not overly flashy. And I always find the entry of the keyboard and bass pedal, and the descending do-do-dos, that signal the transition between segments particularly dramatic.

Live 1973:

The surprisingly outstanding cover from Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs:

Same, live: