Yes -- Owner of a Lonely Heart

 

Once again, I bid you welcome to another weekly session of Reminiscings of Youth where I talk about a non-Japanese song that I encountered in my formative years. For reference, the above is an orchestra hit, a sound that was used like a spice in dishes for a number of songs in those 1980s.

Well, one of the spiciest of those dishes was Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" which made its presence known in October 1983. I had never heard of the band before and after I'd found out that they had started out as a progressive rock group from Great Britain, I kinda figured that this particular single and the accompanying music video rather fit their circumstances. And yes (no pun intended), as I intimated above, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was filled with orchestra hits, probably the most outside of a typical Art of Noise song. I'd say that there were more hits here than in a typical good outing for Shohei Otani.

It was certainly one of the weirder and more epic songs that I had ever listened to. There were the orchestra hits, the sinuous rhythm, Jon Anderson's high flying vocals and the blast of horns (or the synths) in the chorus. The video was quite the thing, too. It begins with the usual performance by Yes and then they decide "Heck, merely showing us perform won't do anything. Let's go high-concept!". Now we get a Kafkaesque adventure in London with animal motifs. I remember having to avert my eyes from the mealworm scenes...not particularly soothing for me. 

The video and the song had their long stay on music TV and the charts as I recall. In Canada, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" made it to No. 2 while in the USA, it hit the top spot on Billboard. Ironically, on the UK Singles chart, it only got as high as No. 28.

Apparently, the song and the band went through their own sturm und drang to get it produced. You can read about it in their Wikipedia article.

Finally, I recall that "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was also used for a Nissan commercial. An owner of a lonely car?🚗

So, what were at the top of the Oricon chart for singles back in October 1983? Well, we've got Nos. 1-3.

1. Anri -- Cat's Eye

2. Akina Nakamori -- Kinku （禁区）

3. Seiko Matsuda -- Sweet Memories