Something's Coming

West Side Story, for reasons unclear to me, remains one of the very few movie musicals that I can tolerate. I suppose it's due to my uneasiness with the cheese factor inherent in so many other musicals of the past. It helped me, and many others I'm certain, that West Side Story was contemporary and not set in the late 1890's or something. It also had a very daring story for the time in which it was produced, including prominent elements such as gang violence and racial hatred, with which many New Yorkers of the early 1960's were all too familiar. Yet those unpleasant factors lent a sense of reality to the script.

Many cover versions of songs from this film have been done over the years, including Barbra Streisand's beautiful recording of "Somewhere" and even Alice Cooper, who worked the "Jets' Song" into the set piece "Gutter Cat vs. The Jets" on their classic album, "School's Out". I'm also vaguely certain that the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" has been eviscerated by at least a couple of different punk bands.

Here's a clip of "Something's Coming", one of the key songs of the movie.

Yes '69: Tony Kaye, Bill Bruford, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire & Peter Banks

I don't know what inspired the musicians of Yes to attempt a cover of "Something's Coming", but I do know it fits them and their musical vision perfectly. Perhaps they felt the same. Yes performed the song often in their earliest incarnation, including at least 3 times for BBC radio appearances. However, it would fail to make the final cut for their first album, for which it was recorded.

Yes would go on to make several interesting choices of cover tunes over the years, including "Every Little Thing" by The Beatles, "I See You" by The Byrds, and their epic re-imagining of Paul Simon's "America", which was recorded during the sessions for "Fragile", but again, it would not appear on that album. "America" did see limited initial release on a promotional compilation album, "The New Age Of Atlantic", which once commanded premium collectors pricing, but can now be had far more reasonably. I will say that Yes has such a unique sound that any song they attempted would sound like them and no one else; a fine quality for any band to have.

Included as a bonus track on the recently remastered CD of their first album, "Yes", here's the 1969 studio version of "Something's Coming". Enjoy!

Yes has built a massive catalog of incredible music over the last 40+ years, in various incarnations with different band members. You can find it all at Amazon. Yes also happens to be out on tour right now, playing the albums "Close To The Edge", "The Yes Album" and "Going For The One" in their entirety. I got to see them recently and it's an amazing night of spectacular music. By all means, go and enjoy.

The movie soundtrack to "West Side Story" and a nicely cleaned up 50th anniversary Blu-Ray edition of the movie are in stock at Amazon also. "When you're a Jet, you stay a Jet!"