This album came into being as a result of a long distance collaboration between the two former Yes men. It has been sold on the Anderson-Wakeman project 360 Tour and is also available online via Gonzomultimedia. No wider release is currently planned.
Rick Wakeman's piano parts were recorded in Norfolk while the vocals were recorded by Jon Anderson in California. String parts have been added to the title track but otherwise the arrangements remain in the original stripped back format.
I confess that, in the days before punk, I was a fan of Yes and it is good to hear that Anderson, now in his mid-sixties, remains in fine voice, despite recent reports of health problems.
Unfortunately, this doesn't persuade me to view this album more positively. It will only appeal to those who can stomach Anderson's simplistic reflections on faith and can share his belief in what he pompously called "ever life".
It is just about conceivable that the two part title track, urging everyone to love themselves, could be interpreted as a hymn to personal growth. However, this advice is so firmly couched in the language of prayer that the inescapable message seems to be that the road to self enlightenment can only come by following a "trail of light" or "sacred pathway".
A trite love song called Forever ("no-one could ever love the way that you love......etc") takes a more secular line but otherwise the recurring theme forces the listener to buy into Anderson's notion of 'truth'. Witness: "Let truth be told" (Morning Life); "we are beautiful amazing and true" (Garden) and "saviour of all that is true to us" (Just One Man).
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At the height of his wishful thinking, he sings of a "beacon to eternal youth" in the Morning Life as a means to "stop this getting old".
Since this truth comes from the universe, the strong implication is that anyone not in tune with this heavenly wisdom is destined to a life of hopelessness and misery.
A little more down to earth is the song 23/24/11 which is the tale of a soldier in Afghanistan who has 23 days 24 hours and 11 minutes of service remaining. However, this contains the arrogant and contentious line claiming that "we are the first generation to know that war doesn't relieve; it just breaks the soul".
Just One Man is the most overtly religious song, full of a sense of wonder that one man could have brought such joy, love and, you guessed it, truth into this world. At his shows, Anderson has apparently said the this is about Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad (surely that means it should be re-titled 'just three men'?).
"Religion poisons everything" is the subtitle to Christopher Hitchens' anti-deist book God Is Not Great. This album illustrates that Hitchens' assertion can also be applied to music.
Certainly, if we accept that the holy gibberish of these songs represents the path to salvation then all I can say is that we as a human race truly are fucked!
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