MEMORIES

It seems most prog rock fans tend to run at the thought of singles. A 7 inch, 45 rpm disc cannot really fit much more than 5 minutes (so how all of "Hey Jude" fit on one side of a 45, I can't say), so many feel great prog can't be made under this kind of time constraint. After all, singles, at least the A side were meant for radio airplay. Also not to mention it seems like many prog rock bands would release singles that were pop-oriented and not very representative of their LPs, at least the Italian prog scene.

I am happy to say that the singles this Dutch band were very representative of what they were doing at the time, and "Memories" is definitely one of their better known. It became a number one Dutch hit, and it's nice to hear such a song did so well there, especially with the symphonic arrangements and the use of Mellotron. Here in America, Earth & Fire is almost completely unknown, and their albums are rarely seen in record stores here, even where imports are stocked. Also mentioning this group to an American they would often confuse with the similarly named Earth, Wind & Fire, a completely unrelated American R&B band (you won't mistake "Shining Star" with "Memories" in the least). What about the B side of Memories, "From the End till the Beginning"? Certainly not a throwaway! Here they go into King Crimson territory, with some insane use of Mellotron, check out those chords and pitch bends! This single is just unbelievable when it comes for that instrument that you'll be glad that you bought this, or heard it.

And if you don't own a turntable, don't worry, you can get both songs as bonus cuts on CD reissue of their self-entitled 1970 debut. And of course, "Memories" itself found itself into tons of Earth & Fire compilations, in fact no Earth & Fire compilation should be complete without it. The reason I'm even mentioning this single, is it's a non-album single, released in between Song of the Marching Children and Atlantis, and not too surprising, very much in the same style. In fact, the German version of Song of the Marching Children included "Memories".

If you enjoy Earth & FIre and you never heard these two songs, do so, as they're just as essential as the two albums they did around the same time (Song of the Marching Children, Atlantis).