Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home
Encyclopedia
"Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" is the opening track on the Scottish alternative rock
band Mogwai
's 1997 debut album, Mogwai Young Team
. It was primarily composed by the band's bassist, Dominic Aitchison
, prior to the 1997 Mogwai Young Team recording sessions.
The song features electric guitar
, bass guitar
, drum kit
, organ
, and glockenspiel
, bookended by sampled
monologue
s from friends of the band. It is an example of the predominantly electric guitar-based genre
the band employed at the time; featuring quiet, clean sections contrasting with loud, distorted
sections, sometimes connected with crescendos and diminuendos. This dynamic
contrast was referred to by the band as "serious guitar music."
"Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" received a positive reception from music journalists, with album reviews focusing mainly on the effectiveness of the dynamic contrast featured within the song, the band's usage of instrumentation, and the track's overall representation of the band's genre at the time.
The song took its title from an exclamation from Lee Cohen, a Chicagoan friend of the band, at Brighton
in May 1997. The band recorded "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" during the Mogwai Young Team sessions from July to August 1997 at MCM Studios in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
, Scotland, where the band had previously recorded the majority of their earlier material. The song was produced by Mogwai and Paul Savage, who handled production and mixing duties on the bulk of the band's previous recordings.
of A major
, in 4/4 time
.
The song begins with an organ pedal point
of an A note
, accompanied by a recording of a monologue passage from a Bergen Student Newspaper, being recited by Mari Myren, referring to when Mogwai played a show on 15 March 1997 at the Hulen, in Bergen, Norway. Myren describes the band's music as "bigger than words and wider than pictures" and states that "If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this." The sound of clapping is heard, followed at (0:54), by a bassline
. This is joined at (1:09) by a soft drumbeat and a clean, two-note guitar melody, based around the chord of A major. At (1:31), the guitars and bass guitar modulate to the relative minor chord, F♯ minor, and D major, and play alternate melody, before returning to the main melody.
This is repeated until (2:32), when the drumbeat gradually fades out, leaving only the ride cymbal keeping the beat, and the guitars, which repeat a melody based around the chord of A major, using harmonics
. At (3:11), the bass guitar joins in, followed by the drum kit, building to a gradual crescendo, eventually climaxing at (3:42) into a distortion-laden chord progression, using the chords F♯ minor, D major, and A major. At (3:46), a guitar solo is played over these chords. This continues until (5:09), after all instruments have faded out except for the tremolo-laden feedback of the guitar.
From (5:27), the backmasked
voice of Barry Burns
is heard jokingly boasting, "When ah shag a bird yee'd think Antarctica hud defrosted oan her bed!" and "Sometimes when ah'm puffing hash ah get a bird tae suck mah dong!". This recording ends with the sound of laughter.
described the song as "gorgeous, moving from a gentle beginning to a series of shattering crescendos", also noting that it "describes almost all of Mogwai’s music at this stage of their career." David Wilson of The Daily Nebraskan
described the song as having "low-key harmonics and [a] delicate melody", followed by "a blistering shard of explosive distortion [bursting] out of nowhere", noting that the dynamic contrast within the song, "sets the seesaw pace for the whole record."
Lee Harvey of Vox also referred to the dynamic contrast, noting that it "[goads] and [entices] you with gentle percussion, leaving you helpless before the surge of sky-swallowing guitars that follows". Scott Irvine of UpBeetMusic described it as a "standout track", also noting "[the] track alone is worth checking out 1997’s best bet for an instrumental tour de force".
Christopher Jackson of Fluffhouse described the track as a "to-the-point introduction to the classic Mogwai sound - elegant musings on a web of bass-heavy guitars, growing patiently to a peak filled out with massive distorted chords and fat drum fills". Brandon Wu of Ground and Sky described the song's progression, "[starting] with a quietly pretty melody . . . [building] to a massive climax of guitar and bass noise." and "woven through [the] crescendo is a beautiful, lyrical guitar line . . . simply stunning."
Additional musicians
Production
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Mogwai
Mogwai
The word mogwai is the transliteration of the Cantonese word 魔怪 meaning "monster", "evil spirit", "devil" or "demon".-Mogwai/Mogui in Chinese culture:...
's 1997 debut album, Mogwai Young Team
Mogwai Young Team
Mogwai Young Team is the debut studio album by Scottish post-rock band Mogwai.-Overview:Mogwai Young Team was recorded in Summer 1997 at MCM Studios in Hamilton, Scotland, and was produced by Paul Savage and Andy Miller...
. It was primarily composed by the band's bassist, Dominic Aitchison
Dominic Aitchison
Dominic Aitchison is a Scottish bassist. He is best known as the bassist and founding member of post-rock band Mogwai. Aside from Mogwai, he also plays bass guitar in Crippled Black Phoenix and Stage Blood....
, prior to the 1997 Mogwai Young Team recording sessions.
The song features electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, bookended by sampled
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
s from friends of the band. It is an example of the predominantly electric guitar-based genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
the band employed at the time; featuring quiet, clean sections contrasting with loud, distorted
Distortion (guitar)
Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of a musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones. The three principal types of distortion effects are overdrive, distortion and fuzz. Distortion effects are sometimes called “gain” effects, as distorted...
sections, sometimes connected with crescendos and diminuendos. This dynamic
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
contrast was referred to by the band as "serious guitar music."
"Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" received a positive reception from music journalists, with album reviews focusing mainly on the effectiveness of the dynamic contrast featured within the song, the band's usage of instrumentation, and the track's overall representation of the band's genre at the time.
Origins and recording
The first live performance documented of "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" was on 6 April 1997 at Highbury Garage in London—the band's first show promoting the Ten Rapid (Collected Recordings 1996–1997) compilation album. This performance, as well as several other performances of the track throughout 1997, was instrumental. During this period, "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" sometimes went under the title of "New Dom".The song took its title from an exclamation from Lee Cohen, a Chicagoan friend of the band, at Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
in May 1997. The band recorded "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" during the Mogwai Young Team sessions from July to August 1997 at MCM Studios in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
Hamilton is a town in South Lanarkshire, in the west-central Lowlands of Scotland. It serves as the main administrative centre of the South Lanarkshire council area. It is the fifth-biggest town in Scotland after Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston and Cumbernauld...
, Scotland, where the band had previously recorded the majority of their earlier material. The song was produced by Mogwai and Paul Savage, who handled production and mixing duties on the bulk of the band's previous recordings.
Musical composition
"Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" is 5 minutes 58 seconds long, in the keyKey signature
In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes unless otherwise altered with an accidental...
of A major
A major
A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps.Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor...
, in 4/4 time
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
.
The song begins with an organ pedal point
Pedal point
In tonal music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing...
of an A note
A (musical note)
La or A is the sixth note of the solfège. "A" is generally used as a standard for tuning. When the orchestra tunes, the oboe plays an "A" and the rest of the instruments tune to match that pitch. Every string instrument in the orchestra has an A string, from which each player can tune the rest of...
, accompanied by a recording of a monologue passage from a Bergen Student Newspaper, being recited by Mari Myren, referring to when Mogwai played a show on 15 March 1997 at the Hulen, in Bergen, Norway. Myren describes the band's music as "bigger than words and wider than pictures" and states that "If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this." The sound of clapping is heard, followed at (0:54), by a bassline
Bassline
A bassline is the term used in many styles of popular music, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, tuba or keyboard...
. This is joined at (1:09) by a soft drumbeat and a clean, two-note guitar melody, based around the chord of A major. At (1:31), the guitars and bass guitar modulate to the relative minor chord, F♯ minor, and D major, and play alternate melody, before returning to the main melody.
This is repeated until (2:32), when the drumbeat gradually fades out, leaving only the ride cymbal keeping the beat, and the guitars, which repeat a melody based around the chord of A major, using harmonics
Guitar harmonics
A guitar harmonic is a musical note played by preventing or amplifying vibration of certain overtones of a guitar string. Music using harmonics can contain very high pitch notes difficult or impossible to reach by fretting...
. At (3:11), the bass guitar joins in, followed by the drum kit, building to a gradual crescendo, eventually climaxing at (3:42) into a distortion-laden chord progression, using the chords F♯ minor, D major, and A major. At (3:46), a guitar solo is played over these chords. This continues until (5:09), after all instruments have faded out except for the tremolo-laden feedback of the guitar.
From (5:27), the backmasked
Backmasking
Backmasking is a recording technique in which a sound or message is recorded backward on to a track that is meant to be played forward...
voice of Barry Burns
Barry Burns
Barry Burns is a Scottish musician best known for his work with post-rock band Mogwai.-Early life:Burns went to Cardinal Newman High School in Bellshill before enrolling with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, taking up a Bachelor of Education degree in teaching music. He did...
is heard jokingly boasting, "When ah shag a bird yee'd think Antarctica hud defrosted oan her bed!" and "Sometimes when ah'm puffing hash ah get a bird tae suck mah dong!". This recording ends with the sound of laughter.
Release and reception
During professional reviews, "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" received largely positive reception. Ian Mathers of Stylus MagazineStylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
described the song as "gorgeous, moving from a gentle beginning to a series of shattering crescendos", also noting that it "describes almost all of Mogwai’s music at this stage of their career." David Wilson of The Daily Nebraskan
Daily Nebraskan
The Daily Nebraskan, established in 1871 as the Monthly Hesperian Student, is the student newspaper of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Although many journalism students work there, the Daily Nebraskan is independent of the University's College of Journalism and Mass Communications. The...
described the song as having "low-key harmonics and [a] delicate melody", followed by "a blistering shard of explosive distortion [bursting] out of nowhere", noting that the dynamic contrast within the song, "sets the seesaw pace for the whole record."
Lee Harvey of Vox also referred to the dynamic contrast, noting that it "[goads] and [entices] you with gentle percussion, leaving you helpless before the surge of sky-swallowing guitars that follows". Scott Irvine of UpBeetMusic described it as a "standout track", also noting "[the] track alone is worth checking out 1997’s best bet for an instrumental tour de force".
Christopher Jackson of Fluffhouse described the track as a "to-the-point introduction to the classic Mogwai sound - elegant musings on a web of bass-heavy guitars, growing patiently to a peak filled out with massive distorted chords and fat drum fills". Brandon Wu of Ground and Sky described the song's progression, "[starting] with a quietly pretty melody . . . [building] to a massive climax of guitar and bass noise." and "woven through [the] crescendo is a beautiful, lyrical guitar line . . . simply stunning."
Personnel and credits
Mogwai- Dominic AitchisonDominic AitchisonDominic Aitchison is a Scottish bassist. He is best known as the bassist and founding member of post-rock band Mogwai. Aside from Mogwai, he also plays bass guitar in Crippled Black Phoenix and Stage Blood....
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Stuart BraithwaiteStuart BraithwaiteStuart Leslie Braithwaite is a Scottish guitarist, bassist, drummer, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist of post rock band Mogwai, with whom he has recorded seven studio albums.-Early life :...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Martin BullochMartin BullochMartin Bulloch is a Scottish musician, best known for being a member of Mogwai.-Early life:Bulloch was born in Bellshill, South Lanarkshire. He was once a cook at a Chinese Restaurant in Glasgow.-Mogwai:...
– drum kitDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - John CummingsJohn Cummings (musician)John Cummings is a Scottish musician and record producer, best known for being a member of Glaswegian band Mogwai, mostly playing guitar, as well as programming, keyboards and vocals.-Mogwai:...
– guitar - Brendan O'HareBrendan O'HareBrendan O'Hare is a Scottish musician, best known as drummer in the Scottish rock band Teenage Fanclub from 1990 until early 1994.-Career:...
– guitar, organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, glockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
Additional musicians
- Barry BurnsBarry BurnsBarry Burns is a Scottish musician best known for his work with post-rock band Mogwai.-Early life:Burns went to Cardinal Newman High School in Bellshill before enrolling with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, taking up a Bachelor of Education degree in teaching music. He did...
– monologueMonologueIn theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media... - Mari Myren – monologue
Production
- Paul SavagePaul SavagePaul Savage is a Scottish musician and record producer, best known for being the drummer in the Scottish indie rock group The Delgados.-Early life:...
– productionRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
External links
- "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" at Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
- "Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" Guitar tablatureTablatureTablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....