Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. After gamely attempting to track the 25 best old-school progressive albums of all time, it’s inevitable we turn our attention to the best songs of the genre. In the spirit of more expansive representation and to avoid, as much as possible, redundancy in this curated list, I’ve tried to limit selections to one track per album. Ultimately, this proved impossible in several cases.
To remain consistent with the previous installment, I’ve maintained my own somewhat arbitrary criteria and kept consideration to English-speaking bands and only songs released during the decade of 1969 to 1979. While the more obscure cuts are better for celebrating overlooked gems deserving praise, there’s an honest effort to celebrate songs that represent the best of the genre, meaning some (very) familiar friends are invoked, and some personal favorites have gone, necessarily, missing.
100. Yes: “The Revealing Science of God” (Tales from Topographic Oceans)
Inexorably, this list has, to begin with, Yes, and it must include a song from perhaps the most maligned album in the prog canon. It could (should?) be chosen just because of its title, which — like many of the subsequent selections, for good, bad, and obvious reasons — epitomizes much of what makes progressive rock beloved, misunderstood, mocked, and mostly ignored. Where many of the elements making this band such a force to be reckoned with — or wrecked — all congealed on their previous three efforts, it’s difficult to deny the blokes set up more draughts than they could drink on this overstuffed, undercooked double album.
Those same elements, including the remarkable individual abilities of each player, the focus, drive, and naysayers-be-damned desire, are all accounted for, but despite typically solid vocals from Jon Anderson and the always-reliable guitar exploits of Steve Howe, Tales from Topographic Oceans is like Jackson Pollock doing Dali, in the dark. Or Something. Unlike so much denigrated or willfully misconstrued prog music, this one actually is everything everyone says it is.
99. Curved Air: “Vivaldi” (Air Conditioning)
Sure, it’s pretentious and more than a little earnest. It’s also brilliant: an extended violin and electric guitar workout, a quirky but compelling tribute to, well, Vivaldi. If the music, much less the execution, were in the least bit sloppy or uninspired, it would crumble under the weight of its own pomposity. Ripe for ridicule and, like many prog-rock compositions, almost inviting ill-will — especially from those who sniff condescendingly at any invocation of sacred cows like the creator of the Four Seasons. Curved Air wrote and performed a song like this for the most obvious of reasons, which at once explains and inoculates it: because they wanted to and because they could.
98. Pink Floyd: “Fearless” (Meddle)
With two key elements (the guitar sound and the vocals) solidly established on this mature, confident album, a final one — Roger Waters’ increasingly mature and topical lyrics — comes to fruition on the third track, “Fearless”. This tune, which could be viewed as a poignant nod to Syd Barrett, is definitely an early installment of a growing Waters obsession: namely, the alienated and isolated protagonist railing against (or reeling from) a mechanized, soulless machine called society.
Another distinctly Pink Floydian touch is the decision to insert a recording of fans at Liverpool’s football stadium chanting “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, which concludes the song on a hopeful note. This tactic also serves as an early blueprint for the sound effects and ironic employment of actual voices used on later albums, specifically The Dark Side of the Moon.
97. King Crimson: “Trio” (Starless and Bible Black)
Perhaps the most mellotron-y of prog songs from the most mellotron-y of prog bands. A few words about the mellotron: its sounds may be undeniably dated, kind of like movies without CGI, which helps explain why certain folks have an unapologetic nostalgia. Put another way, the mellotron was a novelty instrument replacing proper string sections the way Auto-Tune, and overproduction are de rigueur these days. When used judiciously (which may seem oxymoronic, but bands like King Crimson and Genesis did not use mellotron to replace other instruments), this odd device was best utilized as a layering effect, and for the occasionally otherworldly sounds and feelings it could invoke; a hallucinogenic edge that “authentic” instruments could never approximate.
Robert Fripp, clinical, obsessive, even cold, or at least calculating, honed the capacity of conjuring up profoundly emotional sounds and sensations, and “Trio” illustrates that machines (and machine-like men) can convey — and possibly even have — souls. On this number, recorded live, the restraint from all musicians is notable, especially drummer Bill Bruford who had the good sense to lay out and, because his instincts were so sound, Fripp insisted he received co-composer credit.
96. Genesis: “Ripples” (A Trick of the Tail)
Gabriel, gone? They could not go on. They went on. And, for a while, they did better than any reasonable fan could have expected or hoped for. Phil Collins, as it turned out, was not only a suitable, but almost perfect replacement for the former frontman, albeit — at least through the duration of the decade — in a more subtle and self-aware fashion. “Ripples” is as close as the band came to a thoroughly convincing, and satisfying, mini-epic post-Gabriel, and it remains one of Collins’ most effective, and affecting vocal performances.
95. Jethro Tull: “Wind Up” (Aqualung)
Ian Anderson upped his already impressive lyrical game on Jethro Tull‘s breakthrough masterpiece, Aqualung, a song cycle that remains as scornful and relevant as the year it was recorded. While the first side of the original LP concerns itself with, if you’ll indulge the cliché, man’s inhumanity to man, the second side takes on religion with righteous indignation that has scarcely if ever been improved upon by other mainstream acts.
Anderson arguably saves his best for last when, in “Wind Up” he recalls being shipped off to church, eventually concluding that God is “not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays”. It brings full circle the concerns, both material and spiritual, that any sensitive or sentient person must grapple with, or make sense of. “In your pomp and all your glory you’re a poorer man than me / As you lick the boots of death born out of fear,” he snarls, assailing the fake humility and the appropriation of the holy for personal, earthly gains, et cetera.
94. Caravan: “C’Thlu Thlu” (For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night)
You can discern everything from a hint of Black Sabbath to a touch of the Grateful Dead and a smattering of Genesis, with Peter Gabriel in full freak mode, here. It seems a certainty that Blue Oyster Cult was paying attention, and everyone from Randy Rhoads to Metallica owes at least a partial debt. Matching mood to lyrical and thematic content was something every progressive rock band hoped to achieve, but only the best practitioners could pull it off with consistency. Caravan‘s “C’Thlu Thlu” (Google “Cthulhu”) is a case study in creeping doom, a song that could only come from this genre, yet anticipating so much of what was to come.
93. Camel: “The Snow Goose” (The Snow Goose)
In a sensible world, Camel would get a lot more love. While any number of their albums warrant reexamination or discovery, The Snow Goose stands not only as their masterpiece but as one of the first-tier concept albums from the prog genre.
The title track ably encapsulates what is essentially a free-flowing suite connected by “chapters”, using only music to narrate the band’s interpretation of Paul Gallico’s novella. If all of this sounds like an impenetrable mish-mash to the uninitiated ear, the music is almost surprisingly accessible. A dreamlike production influenced equally by classical music and film scores, it’s possibly the closest prog-rock ever got to Ennio Morricone. And yes, that’s intended as the highest form of praise.
92. Gentle Giant: “Nothing at All” (Gentle Giant)
Possibly the most controversial of all progressive rock outfits, Gentle Giant have indefatigable supporters, semi-enthusiastic fans, and everyone else who’s never heard of them. This, of course, is not fair, and the band did enough exceptional work over an extended period of time that they should be name-checked more frequently, both in and outside progressive circles.
It should go without saying that on this song (like the album it’s taken from, like most of their other albums) the musicianship is top-notch. An acoustic-based number, its charms are reserved, somewhat of a refreshing change of pace from Gentle Giant’s typical more-is-a-half-measure modus operandi. Of course, there are some mid-song explosions and an extended drum solo, among other things. Probably as appropriate an introduction to this outfit’s intimidating oeuvre as anything.
91. The Moody Blues: “Have You Heard?” (On the Threshold of a Dream)
On the Threshold of a Dream is the Moody Blues‘ Progressive-with-a-capital-P album: it’s not so much that the material deals with the obligatory inner-space explorations, it tries to capture, with words and music, elements of the sounds, colors, shapes, and emotions these journeys can encompass. The band goes for broke, aesthetically, on the psychedelic suite that closes Side Two: “The Dream” (another poem from Edge) into Pinder’s stirring and profoundly affirming “Have You Heard” (Parts One and Two, naturally).
In between, the interlude/centerpiece “The Voyage”. A bit of avant-garde whimsy, a touch of Stravinsky, a full measure of aspiration, more mellotron than you can fit in a freight train, chirping flutes, crashing snares, and so on. If you think it sounds hopelessly dated, well, you’re right. You should also consider what today’s pre-programmed beats and Auto-tuned atrocities are going to sound like in 40 (or four) years.