For an artist of his stature (52 albums in a career spanning over 50 years) very little is known about Evangelos Papathanassiou’s personal life.  He rarely gives interviews and it’s not known where he generally resides, although he has said that he travels around, rather than settling in one specific country or place.  Born in Volos, Greece in 1943 and a self-taught musician (he refused to take traditional piano lessons and still does not read music) he apparently began composing at the age of four.

Throughout the 1960s he was involved with a number of popular Athens-based bands but it was his solo work (especially scoring films) in the 1970s and beyond that brought him international renown and reward, including the 1982 Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for “Chariots of Fire”.  Most of the world, of course, knows Papathanassiou by his stage name, Vangelis.

When keyboardist, Rick Wakeman left Yes in 1974, Vangelis was considered as a replacement, although he ultimately declined.  However, he did become friendly with lead vocalist (and alto tenor) Jon Anderson and years later the two collaborated on a number of albums as Jon & Vangelis.  With Anderson writing the lyrics and Vangelis composing the music, today’s selection (which reached Number 6 on the UK Singles Charts) was featured on their second album in 1981, “The Friends of Mr. Cairo”.

TODAY’S SONG – Sunday 26 February 2012

I’ll Find My Way Home

You ask me where to begin

Am I so lost in my sin?

You ask me where did I fall

I’ll say I can’t tell you when

But if my spirit is lost

How will I find what is near?

Don’t question I’m not alone

Somehow I’ll find my way home

My sun shall rise in the east

So shall my heart be at peace

And if you’re asking me when

I’ll say it starts at the end

You know your will to be free

Is matched with love secretly

And talk won’t alter your prayer

Somehow you’ll find you are there

Your friend is close by your side

And speaks in far ancient tongue

A season’s wish will come true

All seasons begin with you

One world we all come from

One world we melt into one

Just hold my hand and we’re there

Somehow we’re going somewhere

Somehow we’re going somewhere

You ask me where to begin

Am I so lost in my sin?

You ask me where did I fall

I’ll say I can’t tell you when

But if my spirit is strong

I know it can’t be long

No questions I’m not alone

Somehow I’ll find my way home

Somehow I’ll find my way home

Somehow I’ll find my way home

Somehow I’ll find my way home