Owner of a Lonely Heart

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“Owner of a Lonely Heart”
“Owner of a Lonely Heart” cover
Single by Yes
from the album 90125
B-side Our Song
Released October 1983
Recorded 1983
Genre Progressive Rock
Length 4:25
Label Atco Records
Producer Trevor Horn
Yes singles chronology
Into the Lens
(1980)		 Owner of a Lonely Heart
(1983)		 Leave It
(1984)

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" is a song by the progressive rock band Yes. It is the opening track of their 1983 album 90125. Written primarily by Trevor Rabin (who was new to the band at the time), the song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 — to this date Yes's biggest chart success by far. Since then, it has seen many releases; the original release was b-sided with Our Song, while others were b-sided with e.g. Leave It, Make It Easy, and remixes of this song[1].

Standout features of the song include the catchy, heavily distorted introductory guitar riff, which establishes a motif for the song; producer Trevor Horn's innovative use of jarring orchestra hits and other high-tech sound effects; Rabin's disorienting, schizophrenic guitar solo, which was played through an MXR Pitch Transposer, which mixed the original note with one a perfect fifth higher.

The song's falsetto titular refrain is actually sung by producer Trevor Horn as well as (lead singer) Jon Anderson.[citation needed] Rabin also ably performed this song during his 1989-90 solo tour, with a bit of difficulty on the higher vocal range. Invariably, the Rabin-era band performed this song, preceded by a truncated "Make it Easy" intro. Jon Anderson also has performed "Owner", even though Yes guitarist Steve Howe has repeatedly expressed dislike for the song.[citation needed]

At the time of recording, everyone was already ready to leave. As the song was being recorded, drummer Alan White's drums were being taken away, until he only had the bass drum and snare drum. He used these two for the first recording, then played each individual instrument (crash, hi-hats, toms) separately and dubbed them over the original track to make what is heard in the recording.

The song's music video, directed by Peter Christopherson, received a great deal of airplay on MTV, introducing the revamped Yes lineup and sound to a new generation of fans largely unfamiliar with the band's very different earlier work, which had helped to define the genre of progressive rock. The video begins in standard music video fashion with the band members performing in a studio all the way through the first chorus. Then, abruptly, Jon Anderson says, "Hang on, hang on! Maybe there's another way to do this." Then, each of the band members is shows transforming into a different type of animal before the song is re-started as the soundtrack of a black and white film. The film follows an archetypal Everyman as he tries to make it through a day whilst being shocked by pseudo-psychotic flashes of being menaced by the various animals. He is brought to court by government-looking toughs, summarily thrown out of court and into a boiler room where he fights a bruiser, then runs onto the roof of the building. There, he is confronted by the various band members, shifting back and forth between human and animal guises, which drives him to leap from the building. The video then ends with the same man in the same crowd as at the beginning of the video, but instead he turns back, presumably to go home and avoid the day.

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" has been remixed several times, most notably by Max Graham in April 2005; his version reached number nine in the UK Singles Chart and the music video is still popular. 808 State also did remixes ('2 Close To the Edge Mix' and 'Not Fragile Mix'). and Kyper used riffs of the song in his own song "Tic-Tac-Toe". The song is also covered by Colin Blunstone, backed by an orchestra. Yet another remix was done in 2004 by Deep Dish. It was also sampled by Art of Noise in Close (to the edit).

Frank Zappa also incorporated parts of the song into the guitar solo of one of his own songs, Bamboozled by Love on his 1984 and 1988 tours (see You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3).

On Yes' 35th Anniversary tour, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was frequently played acoustically.

Owner of a Lonely Heart was featured on Flash FM, a radio station in video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

In an Episode of The Simpsons entitled "The DeBarted" Homer does his own remix of the song, singing "Driver of a loaner car," while driving a car on loan from a body shop.

Both hit shows Grey's Anatomy and Degrassi: The Next Generation named an episode after this song. Both shows are known for name their episodes after hit songs.

[edit] Origins

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" was, according to a radio interview with Yes in 1991 (with the Union tour), originally written as a ballad, not as the rock song that became famous. Jon Anderson convinced producer Trevor Horn to speed it up and add some guitar riffs to make it stand out and be more "upbeat". However, as the next paragraph states, Trevor Rabin had already recorded an upbeat demo version of this song before Jon Anderson and Trevor Horn joined the 90125 project, so this story is probably not true.

An extremely raw demo version of the song can be found on Rabin's album 90124, with a different pre-chorus verse and a jazz fusion keyboard solo reminiscent of Chick Corea.

The orchestra and drum samples were lifted from Funk, Inc.'s "Kool is Back."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Yesworld Yes official site, retrieved December 25, 2006.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
"Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson		 Billboard Hot 100 number one single
January 21, 1984 – January 28, 1984		 Succeeded by
"Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club
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Yes
Jon Anderson | Chris Squire | Steve Howe | Alan White
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