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Yessongs

Encyclopedia : Y : YE : YES : Yessongs

 

Escape
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Escape
Arrival
Enlarge
Arrival
Awakening
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Awakening
Pathways
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Pathways

Yessongs is the first live album by the British progressive rock group Yes and was released in 1973. It mostly documents the tour for the album Close to the Edge but also features two tracks ("Perpetual Change" and "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish") recorded during the previous Fragile tour. Yessongs was originally a 3-disc set on vinyl, but is now a double CD.

Contents

History

The two Fragile tour tracks (Long Distance Runaround and Perpetual Change) are the only tracks on the album to feature Yes's original drummer, Bill Bruford, who left the group after recording Close to the Edge. For that album's tour, Yes were joined by drummer Alan White, who remains with the band to this day. White was only three years into his career as a session drummer, but had already worked with such notable acts as The Plastic Ono Band and Joe Cocker.

The album opens with an excerpt from Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, which has been a standard opening Yes concerts ever since. Later in the album, vocalist Jon Anderson briefly sings a passage from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

All band members except Anderson and White are given extended solo space. The track "Mood for a Day" is an unaccompanied guitar performance by Steve Howe, who also takes an extended solo at the beginning of "Yours Is No Disgrace". The Yessongs version of "The Fish" is considerably longer than the studio version on Fragile, with bassist Chris Squire taking an extended solo in mid-song. Bill Bruford performs a drum solo on "Perpetual Change". The album also contains a medley of excerpts from Rick Wakeman's debut solo album The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Wakeman's keyboards add much to the tracks when compared to the studio albums, particularly "Starship Trooper".

The album was initially released on three discs in a unique fold-out package featuring artwork by Roger Dean. Inside are four individual panels by Dean which continue a theme that began with Fragile in 1971. On the back cover of Fragile is an image of a small planet breaking apart into several large pieces with a giant sailing spacecraft nearby. The first panel in Yessongs, titled "Escape", shows the craft apparently leading the planetary fragment through space. The second panel ("Arrival") depicts these fragments landing in the waters of a new world. In the third image ("Awakening") this new landscape becomes the habitat for various plant and animal species. The final image ("Pathways") depicts the emergence of civilization. This theme is also the basis of the film Floating Islands. The sailing craft was used as a small logo on many of the band's subsequent albums, and the image sequence inspired Yes vocalist Jon Anderson's first solo album Olias of Sunhillow in 1976, although Roger Dean was not involved with that album's artwork.

A film also titled Yessongs was released in 1974 which documents Yes’s concert at London’s Rainbow Theater on Christmas night, 1972.

Yessongs was both a critical and commercial success.

Track listing

CD Track Listing

Disc one

  1. "Opening (excerpt from 'Firebird Suite')" (Igor Stravinsky) – 3:47
  2. "Siberian Khatru" (Jon Anderson, SteveHowe, Rick Wakeman) – 9:03
  3. "Heart of the Sunrise" (Anderson, Bill Bruford, Chris Squire) – 11:33
  4. "Perpetual Change" (Anderson, Squire) – 14:11
  5. "And You and I" (Anderson, Bruford, Howe, Squire) – 9:33
  6. *"Cord of Life"
  7. *"Eclipse" (Anderson, Bruford, Squire)
  8. *"The Preacher the Teacher"
  9. *"Apocalypse"
  10. "Mood for a Day" (Howe) – 2:53
  11. "Excerpts from 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'" (Wakeman) – 6:37
  12. ”Roundabout" (Anderson, Howe) – 8:33

Disc two

  1. "I've Seen All Good People" (Anderson, Squire) – 7:09
  2. *"Your Move" (Anderson)
  3. *"All Good People" (Squire)
  4. "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Præmaturus)" (Anderson, Squire) – 13:37
  5. *"Long Distance Runaround" (Anderson)
  6. *The Fish (Schindleria Præmaturus)" (Squire)
  7. "Close to the Edge" (Anderson, Howe) – 18:13
  8. *"The Solid Time of Change"
  9. *"Total Mass Retain"
  10. *"I Get Up I Get Down" (Anderson, Squire)
  11. *"Seasons of Man"
  12. "Yours Is No Disgrace" (Anderson, Bruford, Howe, Tony Kaye, Squire) – 14:23
  13. "Starship Trooper (Anderson, Squire, Howe) – 10:08
  14. *"Life Seeker" (Anderson)
  15. *"Disillusion" (Squire)
  16. *"Würm" (Howe)

Original LP Track Listing

For songwriting credits, see above.

Side one

  1. "Opening (excerpt from 'Firebird Suite')"
  2. "Siberian Khatru"
  3. "Heart of the Sunrise"

Side two

  1. "Perpetual Change"
  2. "And You and I"

Side three

  1. "Mood for a Day"
  2. "Excerpts from 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'"
  3. "Roundabout"

Side four

  1. "I've Seen All Good People"
  2. "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Præmaturus)"

Side five

  1. "Close to the Edge"

Side six

  1. "Yours Is No Disgrace"
  2. "Starship Trooper
Yessongs (Atlantic K 60045) reached #7 in the UK. It also reached #12 in the US during a chart stay of 32 weeks.

Personnel

Charts

Album
Year Chart Position
1973 Billboard Pop Albums 12

Certifications

Organization Level Date
RIAA – USA Gold March 17 1973
CRIAA – Canada Gold December 1 1976
RIAA – USA Platinum April 10 1998

Sources

Yes
Jon Anderson | Chris Squire | Steve Howe | Rick Wakeman | Alan White
Peter Banks | Tony Kaye| Bill Bruford | Patrick Moraz | Geoff Downes | Trevor Horn | Trevor Rabin | Billy Sherwood | Igor Khoroshev
Discography
Studio albums: Yes | Time and a Word | The Yes Album | Fragile | Close to the Edge | Tales from Topographic Oceans | Relayer | Going for the One | Tormato | Drama | 90125 | Big Generator | Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe | Union | Talk | Open Your Eyes | The Ladder | Magnification
Live albums: Yessongs | Yesshows | [[9012Live: The Solos]] | Keys to Ascension | Keys to Ascension 2 | [[House of Yes: Live from House of Blues]]
Compilations: Yesterdays | Classic Yes | Yesstory | [[The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection]]
Remix albums: Yes Remixes
Box sets: Yesyears | [[In a Word: Yes (1969 - )]] | The Word is Live

 

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