"Into the Lens" is a song originally written by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of The Buggles

The Buggles

The Buggles were an English New Wave band consisting of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes . They are remembered chiefly for their 1979 debut single "Video Killed the Radio Star" that was #1 on the singles chart in 16 countries. Its music video was the first to be shown on MTV in the U.S...

. It was first released as "Into the Lens" on the Yes

Yes (band)

Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...

 album Drama

Drama (Yes album)

Drama is the tenth studio album by British progressive rock group Yes. It is the first of two Yes albums without vocalist Jon Anderson. In early 1980, after rehearsing music for the follow-up to the tepidly-received Tormato, both Anderson and Rick Wakeman departed the band over creative and...

in 1980, and the year after on Adventures in Modern Recording

Adventures in Modern Recording

Adventures in Modern Recording is the second and last studio album by the British synthpop duo The Buggles released in 1981 on Carrere Records. Made one year after their stint as members of Yes, the album contains nine tracks, including a stripped-down version of Yes's "Into the Lens", here...

, the second and last album of The Buggles. Both versions were also released as singles: "Into the Lens (I Am a Camera)" by Yes in 1980 and "I Am a Camera" in October 1981 by The Buggles (on Carrere Records).

Overview

The first version of the song was a demo, recorded on a Sunday afternoon when songwriters Trevor Horn

Trevor Horn

Trevor Charles Horn CBE is an English pop music record producer, songwriter, musician and singer. He was born in Houghton-le-Spring in north-east England....

 and Geoff Downes

Geoff Downes

Geoffrey "Geoff" Downes is an English rock keyboard player, songwriter, best known as the keyboardist for the bands The Buggles, Yes and Asia, of which he is the only consistent member. When he was a keyboardist for The Buggles, he played multiple keyboards to achieve a New Wave technopop sound...

 started working on a second The Buggles album in 1980. When they joined Yes, it gained input from other members Steve Howe

Steve Howe (guitarist)

Stephen James "Steve" Howe is an English guitarist, known for his work with the progressive rock group Yes...

, Chris Squire

Chris Squire

Christopher Russell Edward "Chris" Squire , is an English musician, known as the bass guitarist and backing vocalist for the progressive rock group Yes. He is the only member of the group to appear on every album.-Before Yes:...

 and Alan White

Alan White (Yes drummer)

Alan White is an English rock drummer known for his work with the progressive rock band Yes. White was also a member of the Plastic Ono Band, playing live in 1969 at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, which was recorded and released three months later as Live Peace in Toronto 1969...

, and therefore, "Into the Lens" features a more distinctive "prog rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

" sound. When Horn and Downes resumed work on the Buggles album, the song was reworked as "I Am a Camera" - now with a tendency towards the characteristic synthpop

Synthpop

Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

 style of that group. Trevor Horn said about the two versions:

The song "I Am a Camera" was a Buggles track and we had adapted it into a Yes track. It became "Into the Lens" and, naturally, slightly more overblown. I don't mind "Into the Lens"—the melody's unadulterated while the arrangement's a lot more complicated—but I still prefer The Buggles version. I think Geoffrey's brilliant on the The Buggles version.

The two versions feature slightly different lyrics, notably "I will never let you go, and you always let the feelings show" ("Into the Lens") compared to "I will never let you go, if you only let the feelings show" ("I Am a Camera").

The single edit of Yes' own "Into the Lens" was entitled "Into the Lens (I Am a Camera)".

The line "I am a camera" is a quote from Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...

's Goodbye to Berlin

Goodbye to Berlin

Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 short novel by Christopher Isherwood set in pre-Nazi Germany. It is often published together with Mr Norris Changes Trains in a collection called The Berlin Stories.-Details:...

(1939). The full sentence reads, "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking." There was also a play (1951) and subsequent film (1955) based on the novel under the name I Am a Camera

I Am a Camera

I Am a Camera is a 1951 Broadway play inspired by Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin which is part of The Berlin Stories...

.

Music video

In the music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 made for "I Am a Camera", during the beginning, there are a pair of Horn's trademark glasses

Glasses

Glasses, also known as eyeglasses , spectacles or simply specs , are frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. They are normally used for vision correction or eye protection. Safety glasses are a kind of eye protection against flying debris or against visible and near visible light or...

. On one of the lenses is a video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 and the other is glass. Horn comes out of the video side of the glasses (as illustrated). There are scenes involving Horn singing, broken glasses and opticians' tools. The video is seemingly set in a dollhouse

Dollhouse

A dollhouse is a toy home, made in miniature. For the last century, dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and crafting is also a hobby for many adults. The term dollhouse is common in the United States and Canada...

. Towards the end, Horn is seen lying on the floor passed out.

Other informations

Since 1982, few frames from the song are used as a jingiel of "music premiere" at Polish Radio 3 and as a jingiel of new song on their chart - Lista Przebojów Programu Trzeciego.