Free The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe Page A

the beautiful Cicely Boyd, or starting the band, the band they had been talking about for months now, but whose instrumentation still extended no further than Benjamin’s guitar and Philip’s mother’s piano. Perhaps all of this was more important.
    ‘So you like the name Minas Tirith?’ he said.
    ‘I told you,’ Benjamin answered, ‘it’s all right. I think it’s more important to decide what we’re going to sound like.’
    ‘Well, what about Yes? Mum and Dad got me Tales from Topographic Oceans for Christmas. It’s fantastic. I’ll lend it you on Monday.’
    Benjamin didn’t answer. He may already have known, deep down, that the venture was doomed; but he wouldn’t admit it yet, even to himself. He was still an optimist in those days.

7
    Thursday, March 7th, 1974 was an important day, a memorable day. It was the day Philip made his first foray into journalism, and it was the day Benjamin found God. Two events which were to have far-reaching consequences.
    It was also the day on which Benjamin’s worst nightmare seemed about to come true.
    For many days now, Philip had been hard at work on an article which he hoped to see published in the school newspaper. The Bill Board appeared once a week, on Thursday mornings, and he was one of its most avid readers. The title betrayed its humble origins as a loose collection of typewritten essays and notices which used to be posted on a bulletin board in one of the upper corridors; but this had proved an inconvenient format, in most respects, and the previous year an enterprising young English master called Mr Serkis had overseen its transition into print. The paper now extended to eight stapled sheets of A4, put together on Tuesdays by a cartel of sixth-formers in the glamorous secrecy of an office tucked away in the rafters above The Carlton Club. It was rare, very rare, for someone as young as Philip to have anything accepted by this uncompromising crew; but today, somehow, he had managed it.
    Shortly before nine o’clock that morning he was to be found sitting in the school library, reading his article for the twelfth time through eyes misty with pride and excitement. The front page of the paper contained a long editorial penned by Burrell of the upper-sixth, lamenting the indecisive outcome of last week’s general election, and the reappointment of Harold Wilson as Prime Minister. Philip couldn’t possibly aspire to writing such a piece, at this stage; the front half of the paper would remain unreachable, beyond imagination. But at least his review came before the sports results, and Gilligan’s cartoons. And how comfortably it nestled on the page, between Hilary Turner’s magisterial discussion of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, which had just opened at the Birmingham Rep, and a few lines of appreciation – penned by Mr Fletcher himself – about the poet Francis Piper, in advance of his keenly anticipated visit to King William’s (a visit scheduled for that very morning, Philip almost-registered in his trancelike state). To see his own efforts slotted in between the work of these senior practitioners was more than he would have dared hope for.
    And yet, thought Philip, reading his piece again for the thirteenth time, and now with something like objectivity, there was no doubt that he deserved it.
    ‘Tales from Topographic Oceans’ [he had written] is the fifth album from Yes, without doubt the most musically talented and advanced rock group in Britain today, if not the whole world. Without doubt it is their masterpiece.
    The concept behind the album was created by Jon Anderson, Yes’s brilliant lead singer and songwriter. Hailing from Accrington, Lancs., Anderson has always had an affinity with Eastern spiritualism and philosophy. Inspired by Paramhansa Yoganda’s ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ (nothing to do with Jellystone National Park!) the album is a double album with four sides, each containing only one long song, comprising four long songs in total.