“Future Memories” is one of the earliest songs tried during sessions for Yes’ 22nd album, and one of the most praised by band members along the way. It’s no surprise, then, that the track earned a coveted spot as the third single from 2021’s The Quest, issued to coincide with the album’s physical-release date.
What’s most notable about “Future Memories,” however, is what it isn’t: another epic for epic’s sake. It’s probably most in keeping with a comment guitarist Steve Howe made to Garry Foster of the Prog Rock Files when discussing Yes’ goals for The Quest: “Let’s have all fresh material, nothing hanging over from the past.”
Yes remains steadfast in its quietude here, as Jon Davison pairs a lithe Fender F-310 figure only with his own searching vocal. Howe’s electric steel guitar eventually joins with a lonesome cry, and bassist Billy Sherwood intertwines at the mic while artfully employing his Spector fretless. What might have simply been a song about romantic longing begins to become something else: Howe has called it “really, really soulful”; Sherwood ranked “Future Memories” among his favorite moments on The Quest.
It’s actually more than that. By refusing to once again scale those mountains coming out of the sky, “Future Memories” becomes perhaps the gutsiest thing on this album. It’s a particularly noteworthy decision in the age of ghost bands who are perfectly content with simply aping their most famous sounds.
Credit in this instance doesn’t go to legacy guys like Howe or drummer Alan White, or even next-gen figures like Sherwood and keyboardist Geoff Downes. Instead, “Future Memories” represents Jon Davison’s long-awaited arrival as a creative force of his own within Yes.
Yes’ first run throughs of this song came during the very few pre-COVID sessions for The Quest, when Howe and Davison were still able to work face to face on new material. Davison arrived with “Future Memories,” at this point only sketched out on a 12-string.
“In November of ’19, Yes began collaborating,” Davison told the Decibel Report. “I happened to be spending time in England, staying with my girlfriend Emily. This allowed Steve and me to first get together and arrange ideas for two songs, [Howe’s original] ‘Damaged World’ and ‘Future Memories.'”
Even in skeletal form, Davison’s composition sparked something in Howe. The guitarist was impressed by how much Davison had grown since their last joint efforts on 2014’s often-maligned Heaven and Earth. Being on the road together in the years that followed helped them grow closer, as had shared time collaborating on Howe’s 2020 solo album Love Is.
Then the pandemic sent everyone into lockdown. Howe took it as an opportunity to refocus on studio work, since they’d been pulled off the concert trail: “OK,” he mused in an interview with Northern Life magazine, “this is a means to an end.”
Yes moved forward virtually, and weeks then turned into months as they constructed music for The Quest, track by meticulous track. “Future Memories,” despite being one of their initial stabs at working together again, remained a band favorite.
“I love all of [The Quest],” Sherwood told Bass Guitar Review, but especially “the delicate pieces where I can play fretless bass. ‘Future Memories’ is great; I love the expressiveness of that as a song. It really moves me, and I really enjoy playing it.”
“Future Memories” is pretty, but not simply pretty – a fair criticism on so much of Davison’s Yes debut on Heaven and Earth. “We don’t even mention that album, because he could not really get himself established as he wanted to,” Howe told Foster. “He has matured; he’s singing his own way. He’s come to the fore, and he’s really produced some great vocals.”
Parts of The Quest, to this point, threatened to devolve into soft-rock prog, too. But not here. There’s something darker about “Future Memories,” as if the ever-more-confident Davison is boldly peering down into a spiraling well of separation anxiety. We’re hearing him grow into his role with each passing verse.
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