Yes Songs - Yours Is No Disgrace Lyrics

Yes - Yours Is No Disgrace

Yes - Yours Is No Disgrace Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Yes Album
Released: 1971

Yours Is No Disgrace Lyrics

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face.
Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human race,
On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place,
If the summer change to winter, Yours Is No Disgrace.

Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are,
Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are,
Lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far,
Lost in musing circumstances, that's just where you are.

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face.
Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human race,
On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place,
If the summer change to winter, yours is no,
Yours is no disgrace.
Yours is no disgrace.
Yours is no disgrace.

Death defying, mutilated armies scatter the earth,
Crawling out of dirty holes, their morals, their morals disappear.

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face.
Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human, silly human race,
On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place,
If the summer change to winter, yours is no,
Yours is no disgrace.
Yours is no disgrace.
Yours is no disgrace.

Writer/s: ANDERSON, JON/SQUIRE, CHRIS/HOWE, STEVE JAMES/BRUFORD, WILLIAM SCOTT/KAYE, TONY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Yours Is No Disgrace

The lyric in this song, "Caesar's Palace, morning glory, silly human race," helps explain the story behind it. Caesar's Palace is a casino in Las Vegas, and an interesting reference for a British band to make. When we asked Yes frontman/lyricist Jon Anderson about it, he explained: "I'd just been to Vegas and it was amazing how crazy the place was and how silly we are. Silly human race. It was something to do with how crazy we can be as a human race to be out there flittering money around and gambling, trying to earn that big payout, when actually that's not what life is truly about. Our life is truly about finding our divine connection with God, if you like. You know, that's why we live.

And whenever I sing that song, it always comes back to me that I'm singing about that kind of Caesar's Palace, morning glory, sweet human race - it's on a sailing ship to nowhere, planet earth. The planet earth is not going anywhere. It's going around the sun, of course, but we're on this sailing ship to nowhere, leaving anyplace. It's like Earth Mother. So don't worry about stuff, it's not our fault if things go wrong." (Here's our full Jon Anderson interview .)

The Vietnam War was an influence on this song. Governments fight wars, not men and women - therefore yours is no disgrace. The message is that war has no winners and no real meaning - as Jon Anderson has explained, the young people going off to fight the war had no say in the matter, and the war itself was certainly not their fault.

"Death defying, mutilated armies scatter the earth, Crawling out of dirty holes, their morals, their morals disappear" - killing is brutal and cruel, but the disgrace falls not on the soldiers, but on those who orchestrated the war.

Steve Howe devised a completely new opening to this song specifically for the Yessongs live album, a decision that was made at the last minute. (thanks, Adrian - Brookings, SD)

The entire band is credited with writing this song. Steve Howe has said that his guitar part is one of his favorite contributions to Yes. With modern equipment, they were able to do overdubs, which was new to Howe. "It was a 'studioized' solo because it was made up in different sections," he said. "I became three guitarists."