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Drama was the only Yes album without Jon Anderson on lead vocals. Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman had quit the group the previous year over various creative and financial disagreements. In their place stepped Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes - better known as principal members of The Buggles, of "Video Killed The Radio Star" fame. So, the incarnation of Yes that recorded this album and song was essentially a merger of the 2 groups.
The song's title is never mentioned in the lyrics; the chorus instead features the refrain "I am a camera."
The unlikely merger of Yes and Buggles turned out to be short-lived, disbanding after their 1980 tour as each member moved on to other projects. Horn and Downes returned to The Buggles to record that group's follow-up album, Adventures In Modern Recording. Among that album's tracks is an abbreviated and reworked version of this song, under the title "I Am A Camera." Downes left the Buggles before that album was finished to join Steve Howe's newly formed supergroup Asia. Horn was able to complete the album without Downes, but it tanked, leading to The Buggles' demise and Horn's career change from a recording artist to strictly a producer. Meanwhile, Chris Squire and Alan White tried to form a supergroup of their own. They approached Jimmy Page and Robert Plant about forming a new band that would have been called XYZ ("ex-Yes and Zeppelin"). Plant was not interested, so instead Squire and White formed a new group named Cinema. By 1983 Cinema had evolved into a new incarnation of Yes, complete with Jon Anderson back on lead vocals - and none other than Trevor Horn as their producer. (thanks, Joshua - Twin Cities, MN, for all above)
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Comments:
"I am a Camera" is the title of a play by John Van Druten. That play was later the basis for the musical "Caberet."
- Bob, Oakland, CA
This is around the time(or a little later than) when Yes' lyrics became either much too literal, very corny, or most of the time both.
- Steveb, Spokane, WA
Drama is probably a better album than Tormato before it, but I just can't get past it. Yes is not Yes without Jon Anderson on vocals! And the whole "I am a Camera" is just as cheesy as "Don't Kill the Whale" or "Circus In Heaven."
- Adrian, Brookings, SD