Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home - Musical Composition

Musical Composition

"Yes! I Am a Long Way from Home" is 5 minutes 58 seconds long, in the key of A major, in 4/4 time.

The song begins with an organ pedal point of an A note, accompanied by a recording of a monologue passage from a Bergen Student Newspaper, being recited by Mari Myren, referring to when Mogwai played a show on 15 March 1997 at the Hulen, in Bergen, Norway. Myren describes the band's music as "bigger than words and wider than pictures" and states that "If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this." The sound of clapping is heard, followed at (0:54), by a bassline. This is joined at (1:09) by a soft drumbeat and a clean, two-note guitar melody, based around the chord of A major. At (1:31), the guitars and bass guitar modulate to the relative minor chord, F♯ minor, and D major, and play alternate melody, before returning to the main melody.

This is repeated until (2:32), when the drumbeat gradually fades out, leaving only the ride cymbal keeping the beat, and the guitars, which repeat a melody based around the chord of A major, using harmonics. At (3:11), the bass guitar joins in, followed by the drum kit, building to a gradual crescendo, eventually climaxing at (3:42) into a distortion-laden chord progression, using the chords F♯ minor, D major, and A major. At (3:46), a guitar solo is played over these chords. This continues until (5:09), after all instruments have faded out except for the tremolo-laden feedback of the guitar.

From (5:27), the backmasked voice of Barry Burns is heard jokingly boasting, "When ah shag a bird yee'd think Antarctica hud defrosted oan her bed!" and "Sometimes when ah'm puffing hash ah get a bird tae suck mah dong!". This recording ends with the sound of laughter.