Music / Drama (Yes Album)

"Run thro' the light of day, run to the light of night."

"Machine, machine messiah
The mindless search for a higher controller
Take me to the fire and hold me
Show me the strength of your singular eye"

—"Machine Messiah"

Drama is the tenth studio album by British Progressive Rock band Yes, released on 18 August 1980 through Atlantic Records. After the lukewarm reception Tormato received, as well as various failed attempts to form new recording sessions, lead vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman both quit the band, expressing dissatisfaction with the creative direction. While recording as a three-piece in London's Townhouse Studios, the remaining members had met The Buggles, who happened to share the same management as Yes, and were impressed with vocalist Trevor Horn's performance in their unreleased song "We Can Fly from Here" that they invited them into the band as replacements.

It was released to strong sales, reaching #2 in the UK and #18 in the US, albeit the first time since 1971 that it didn't attain gold certification in the latter market. In early 1981, after going on a supporting tour, Yes disbanded, with Chris Squire and Alan White forming a new band Cinema with the band's original keyboardist Tony Kaye and South African musician Trevor Rabin. Jon Anderson was invited shortly afterwards, becoming the revived incarnation of Yes and releasing 90125, produced by Trevor Horn. While "We Can Fly From Here" wasn't released as part of the album, it wound up being reworked as an expanded suite for the 2011 album Fly From Here, and Horn himself would return to the lead vocal role in the 2018 reworking of the album (which ended up featuring the same lineup as Drama after a nearly 40-year gap; Horn cited this fact as his main reason for creating the remix).

Supported by the single "Run Through the Light".

Tracklist

Side one

1. "Machine Messiah" (10:22)
2. "White Car" (1:21)
3. "Does It Really Happen?" (6:27)

Side two

1. "Into the Lens" (8:30)
2. "Run Through the Light" (4:41)
3. "Tempus Fugit" (5:11)

Principal members

• Geoff Downes - keyboards, vocoder
• Trevor Horn - lead vocals, fretless bass ("Run Through the Light")
• Steve Howe - guitar, mandolin ("Run Through the Light"), backing vocals
• Chris Squire - bass, backing vocals, piano ("Run Through the Light")
• Alan White - drums, percussion, backing vocals

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And the feeling you give me (yes, yes) makes me want to trope with you:

• Anti-Love Song: "Into the Lens" details the narrator reminiscing on a failed relationship, comparing his rose-tinted memories of it to an old photograph.
• Big "YES!": "Tempus Fugit" ended several verses in an emphatic yes, and then at the end of the bridge:
  From the moment you tell me... YEEEEEEEEEEES!
• Design Student's Orgasm: Another Roger Dean cover, and the first one since 1974's Relayer, given that the two albums between were done by Hipgnosis instead.
• Epic Rocking: "Machine Messiah", "Does It Really Happen" and "Into the Lens" are all above six minutes, of which "Into the Lens" was originally a shorter Buggles song^note said Buggles song had since been used in their second and last album Adventures in Modern Recording.
• Gratuitous Latin: "Tempus fugit" means "Time Flies" in Latin. Thus, the song has a stealth Title Drop due to using the English translation in the lyrics.
• Lead Bassist: While otherwise doing vocals, Horn performs the fretless bass in "Run Through the Light".
• Limited Lyrics Song: "White Car":
  I see a man in a white car
  Move like a ghost on the skyline
  Take all your dreams
  And you drive them away
  Man in a white car.
• Longest Song Goes First: The 10:22 "Machine Messiah" opens the album.
• Miniscule Rocking: "White Car", which served as a brief break between two songs exceeding six minutes.
• New Sound Album: The sound was heavier than usual and there's even some new wave influences felt with the inclusion of the Buggles.
• Non-Appearing Title: Zig-zagged for half of the songs on the album!
  • In "Does It Really Happen?", the title phrase is written as such in the lyric sheet ("Does it really happen to you?" is the second line in both verses), but the actual vocals are one word off each time—in the first verse it's "Could it really happen to you?" and in the second, it's "Does it ever happen to you?"
  • The single release of "Into the Lens" was promoted with the longer title "Into the Lens (I Am a Camera)" prior to the Buggles' rerelease of the song which reshortened its title, but to its parenthetical half (see below).
  • For "Tempus Fugit", technically the title does appear, but in its English translation of "time flies".
• Rearrange the Song: "Into the Lens" started as a Buggles demo that the rest of Yes fleshed out, rewriting some of the bridges and making the structure more elaborate. The Buggles would, in turn, re-rearrange the track as "I Am a Camera" on Adventures in Modern Recording, with that version being atmospheric Synth-Pop, transposed from a major key to a minor one, and lacking the Yes rewrites.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Machine Messiah" references William Blake's poem "The New Jerusalem", often sung as the hymn, "Jerusalem".
  • "Into the Lens" references the Christopher Isherwood novel Goodbye to Berlin (part of The Berlin Stories, the precursor to Cabaret; Isherwood is probably now better known for A Single Man), which contains the phrase "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking". It's another example of a Genius Bonus, once again due to the story's relative obscurity.
• Take That!: "White Car" is a dig at Gary Numan, who had been given a car by his label.
• Title Drop: In "Tempus Fugit", the word "yes" is mentioned so many times, and with such pathos, that you could get the impression it's supposed to be an intentional reference to the band's name.

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