State of Independence, or, My Sometimes Curious Musical Influences

I've been on a Jon and Vangelis kick lately. It's one of those weird little against-type things that set my friends to scratching their heads since I'm known to pretty much everybody as a straight-up old school metal head.

But, I have always been a fan of Yes anyway and I loved Vangelis' soundtrack for the original Carl Sagan Cosmos. I remember picking up a cassette of The Best of Jon and Vangelis when I was in high school in the 1980s and had it in steady rotation for years until my cassettes were rendered obsolete by CDs. I've just had a few of the songs from that album on my mind over the past several days.

Anyway...I looked up their song State of Independence a little while ago on YouTube:

In the sidebar is a live version of a cover that Donna Summer did a year after the original was released. Again, a head-scratcher for most of the people that know me, but I really like her version, too.

I suspect that this is one of those songs that is really hard to screw up without special effort.