Monday Musical Tribute as Well as a Question of the Day for 1/19: On Loving Songs We Do Not Understand

Harrogate celebrates the Yes song, "Shoot High Aim Low," which comes off of their practically forgotten late-80s record, Big Generator.

But today's Musical Tribute raises a question that Harrogate suspects all Situationers have dealt with. Even those who pay little attention to song lyrics tend to have a handful of much-loved pop songs, the lyrics to which they do not understand. Such has always been the case for Harrogate with "Shoot Hight Aim Low." Clearly some sort of story is being told here, perhaps even two stories being interwoven with one another. But damned if Harrogate can put it together coherently in his mind.

And yet just about every time he listen to this song Harrogate finds it mesmerizing. Yes (no pun intened), part of it is the sheer sound of the Song. Something about "Shoot High Aim Low" proclaims: Take Me Seriously Because I Deserve to Be Taken Seriously. Granted, part of it is the absolutely devastating guitar work that takes place beginning with the 3:50 mark of the video provided below: guitar work that will drop a plummet line into the depths of your ear and cause, as it were, an eargasm. But yet, there is something more.....

So here are the lyrics, followed by a very tight version of this wonderfully enigmatic song.

And it brings Harrogate to his Question of the Day: What songs if any, Situationers, come to mind as Songs Ye Love, but for the LIfe of you have no idea what the hell it is doing?


We hit the blue fields
In the blue sedan we didn't get much further
Just as the sun was rising in the mist
We were all alone we didn't need much more
So fast this expidition
So vast this heavy load
With a touch of luck and a sense of need
Seeing the guns and their faces
We look around the open shore
Waiting for something

Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low

This was to be our last ride
With the steel guitar and the love you give me
Underneath the skin a feeling, a breakdown
Well we sat for hours on the crimson sand
Exchanges in the currency of humans bought and sold
And the leaders seem to lose control
Shall we lose ourselves for a reason
Shall we burn ourselves for the answer
Have we found the place that we're looking for
Someone shouted "open the door"
Lookout

Shoot high break low
Aim high shoot low
Feeling of imagination
Break high let go
Shoot high aim low
Shoot high aim low
Nothing you can say
Shoot high let go
Takes me by surprise
Shoot high aim low
Who says's there's got to be a reason
Shoot high let go
Who says there's got to be an answer
We were all alone, we didn't need much more
Shoot high aim low
The sun's so hard on this endless highway
Shoot high let go
Shoot high aim low
I've heard the singers, who sing of love
Shoot high let go
In the blue sedan we never got much further
Shoot high aim low