No. 941 – The Gates of Delirium

Performer: Yes

Songwriters: Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White, Patrick Moraz

Original Release: Relayer

Year: 1974

Definitive Version: Yesshows, 1980

I’ve had a rather up-and-down relationship with Yes over the years. After I had my big rock breakthrough in high school, Yes was one of the bands that I listened to a lot. Well, I should say that I listened to Fragile and Classic a lot; the rest of the catalog, not so much. But I was on a big Yes upswing in the mid-90s when I bought Yesshows after joining the Dispatch.

My job during this time was to put together BusinessToday. BT was the Dispatch’s Monday business tab. It focused on small, local businesses and workplace issues and was heavy on the advice. My weekly schedule consisted of two days doing first reads on free-lance columnists—the ones the editors didn’t want to concern themselves with—while working the business rim (copy editing and sending business pages). Thursday I’d lay out BT and then Friday I’d be back on the rim. Saturday I would send the Sunday section with full stock pages and then read and wrap up BT.

Thursday was the best day. After dinner break, about 7, I’d get the ad design layouts, and I’d design the section. Because this required a page-design ATEX machine—and only one of those was in the business department—I’d go work upstairs in the features department on that machine. Features had nothing going on in the evening, so no one was in that part of the building. That meant I could turn on the TV and have a baseball game on—just like the old days in Flint—or I could bring my Discman and listen to music.

Because Yesshows was in heavy rotation at that time, I can’t hear this song and not think of my fourth-floor hideout on Thursday nights, where I’d stay until I got done, which meant midnight or even 1 a.m. if it was a larger section—or if I were called in to help get the Friday section out. At the time, I really liked doing my own thing and having a particular niche.