Going For The One is Yes’s eighth studio album.
Keyboardist Rick Wakeman left Yes after Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973), disappointed with the band’s musical direction. Wakeman, who had gone off on his own to work on his silly concept albums, was replaced by Swiss virtuoso Patrick Moraz, who brought a new edge and jazz-rock influences to the band’s sound.
Relayer (1974), created with Moraz, is one of Yes’s finest albums, and it was followed not only by a series of quite successful solo albums by all the members but also by the band’s most successful North American tour to date in 1976. During that time, Moraz proved that he had no shortage of musical talent. However, not everything was going smoothly.
The band’s chemistry began to fray, at the very latest, when work began on composing Going For The One in Switzerland, where Yes had fled to escape the sky-high taxes imposed by Britain’s socialist government (the income tax rate for the wealthy could be as high as 90%!). And when I refer to the band’s internal dynamics, I’m specifically talking about the relationship between Moraz and the rest of the band. Exactly what Moraz did wrong has never been directly addressed. Some band members have said that, as a foreigner, Moraz simply didn’t fit in with the British members, or that he didn’t put his whole heart into the band’s activities, but Jon Anderson has hinted more directly that sudden stardom had gone to Moraz’s head, with unfortunate side effects. How this actually manifested itself in Moraz’s behavior, however, has remained a mystery.
The end result of the old guard’s distrust was clear, though. In the middle of songwriting sessions that had already been underway for a few months, Moraz was sent packing in November 1976 without any labor negotiations. Moraz thus had time to participate in composing the songs that ended up on Going For The One, but the extent of his influence on them is more controversial. At any rate, he received no credits (in Moraz’s own opinion, his name should have appeared on the list of composers for “Awaken”).
Moraz found himself unemployed and, in his own words, completely broke, while Yes continued their songwriting sessions in luxurious surroundings in Montreux for a while without a keyboardist. It wasn’t long before Rick Wakeman was recruited to help with the recordings. Originally, Wakeman was hired only as a session musician, but it very quickly became apparent that the chemistry between Wakeman and the rest of the band was better than ever before. Wakeman also really liked Yes’s new, more incisive, clearer, and more compact music.
Wakeman was persuaded to rejoin the band, and, funnily enough, the British music magazine Melody Maker reported the news on the very same day that Wakeman agreed to the request. Apparently, bassist Chris Squire had leaked the information in advance to a journalist he knew, Chris Welch. It has also been speculated that behind the entire “Moraz out, Wakeman in” operation was the Svengali-like manager Brian Lane, who managed both Yes and Wakeman. Lane may have felt that, for the sake of his own bottom line, it was best to bring Wakeman and Yes back together, especially since Wakeman’s solo career had recently been on the decline.
As I hinted at above, Wakeman liked Yes’s new musical direction. So what was this new direction? To put it simply, one could say that on this album, Yes took a few steps back and returned to a time around The Yes Album, when the band’s music was simpler and still clearly rooted in pop/rock structures. On Going For The One, Yes returns to making “songs” again instead of “works.”
The music isn’t as “dense” as it used to be. The compositions on Going For The One aren’t necessarily any less complex than before, but the arrangements—or, in Yes’s case, the orchestrations—are simpler and more transparent.
However, on Going For The One, Yes does not compromise on its extraordinary musicality or the virtuosity of its individual members—values that have come to be associated with the band’s music. On the contrary, on Going For The One, Yes seems to be aiming for beauty, melody, and clarity. Even more clearly than before, the band members’ virtuosity is harnessed specifically to serve the songs—and this time, the songs are more compact than anything the band had released in a long time. The songs range in length from 4 to 8 minutes, though the album’s closing track, “Awaken,” which runs over 15 minutes, is an exception to this.
So what drove Yes to change direction? It’s often been customary to blame—or credit—the rise of punk rock for this, but I don’t think it had much of an impact on what the album Going For The One ultimately turned out to be. The members of Yes have stated on several occasions that they were too busy (or too arrogant?) to even pay attention to punk rockers, and more importantly, the album was composed—and, to a large extent, recorded—before the most influential punk albums had even hit the market.
It is true, however, that around the time of Going For The One, the record label began putting pressure on Yes for the first time to write hit songs and perhaps also to simplify their music in general. Rather than punk, I believe this was due more to the music business’s gradual shift toward a truly commercial and industrial model. Whereas record companies had previously been run by music fans on a somewhat amateurish basis, by the late 1970s, more and more people who viewed the business as a genuine commercial enterprise began rising to leadership positions and started demanding a more reliable return on their investments.
So how can albums be made into more reliable hits? Of course, there’s no magic formula, but businesspeople still strive to tailor the music as much as possible to the average consumer and customize the songs to suit radio play—in terms of their choruses, sounds, and lengths.
It’s no coincidence that so-called AOR music began to gain popularity around the same time. Bands like Journey, Styx, and Boston drew some inspiration from progressive rock, but they streamlined it, smoothed out the rough edges, and stripped the music of its “excessive” subtlety—which wouldn’t have come across properly over poor-quality car stereos or in noisy stadiums and hockey arenas. Boston and Foreigner set the course that the record moguls wanted even Yes to follow—not the Sex Pistols or the Clash.
On the other hand, internal dynamics within the band also drove the change. The band had, in fact, backed itself into a corner to some extent with its massive epics. Where could Yes possibly go from Tales From Topographic Oceans and still remain rock stars? And of course, the members of Yes wanted to be stars and enjoy all the perks that come with it for musicians.
It was also a matter of Anderson deliberately loosening the reins. Anderson had dominated the band’s direction starting with Close To The Edge (1972) and had steered the band’s music in an increasingly grandiose direction. He had even threatened to leave the band around the time of Topographic Oceans if the band wasn’t taken in the direction of his vision. This had, of course, caused tensions, particularly with Chris Squire, who, like Anderson, was a founding member of Yes and considered himself the band’s other leading figure. On Going For The One, Anderson decided to relax, go with the flow, and at the same time give more responsibility to the other band members (though most of the music was still written by Anderson and Howe). This attitude bore fruit on Going For The One in the form of good team spirit, but it also marked the end of a classic era (or the “main sequence,” as author Bill Martin calls it).
”Going For The One”
Going For The One kicks off with a bang with the title track, laying all its cards on the table right away: now it’s time to rock, not to map topographical oceans while balancing a monocle on the tip of one’s nose. The most notable features of the title track are its overall intensely aggressive atmosphere and, on the other hand, Steve Howe’s wildly wailing steel guitar. Howe plays the entire song on steel guitar alone—something unheard of on a Yes album before. And extremely rare in rock music in general. At times, the song even has an almost hillbilly vibe!
Anderson has said that the lyrics to “Going For The Onen” are about sports. Perhaps so, but the most interesting thing about the lyrics is that—perhaps for the first time in the band’s history—they contain a hint of humor. And what’s more, a self-deprecating reference to Anderson’s own grandiosity:
Now the verses I’ve sang
Don’t add much weight to the story in my head
So I’m thinking I should go and write a punch line.
But they’re so hard to find
In my cosmic mind
That part always brings a smile—at least to my own lips.
I’d be lying if I said that “Going For The One” is one of my favorite songs by Yes, but it is nonetheless an interesting and original take on rock ‘n’ roll from the band—and a bold departure from the style of Yes’s earlier albums.
”Turn Of The Century”
After the rock of the title track, the mood shifts quite radically in the next song. The eight-minute “Turn Of The Century” is, in fact, a delicate and subtle, downright refined piece of art. Co-composed by Anderson, Howe, and drummer Alan White, “Turn Of The Century” is one of Yes’s most narrative-driven songs. The lyrics successfully and deeply emotionally convey a story inspired by the Greek myth of Pygmalion—about a sculptor who tries to capture the features of his deceased wife by carving them into stone. His ultimate goal is to bring her back to life. Yes succeeds in telling this story in a deeply moving way.
Musically, the first half of “Turn Of The Century” is dominated by Anderson’s vocals and Howe’s intricately ringing acoustic guitar. These are lightly accented by orchestral-sounding percussion and ethereal keyboard flourishes. Toward the end, Wakeman’s grand piano—played majestically and, in his typical style, ornately—takes center stage. Midway through the song, we hear a magnificent duet between the grand piano and Howe’s electric guitar. Squire provides backing throughout the song, lurking almost invisibly in the background while still playing a vital role. “Turn Of The Century” is a magnificent track, and its mid-section instrumental passage in particular is downright magical and breathtakingly beautiful. “Turn Of The Century” is certainly not rock music in any sense of the word, and it’s easy to view it as a kind of modern art song. “Turn Of The Century” is a masterful and somewhat forgotten—or at least underrated—composition and, alongside the closing track “Awaken,” one of the highlights of Going For The One. The song is also deceptively challenging, as both White and Squire have said it’s one of Yes’s most difficult songs to play live due to its very flexible and subtle rhythm.
(The CD version, released in 2003, includes an interesting bonus track—a “rehearsal version” of “Turn Of The Century”—which has a completely different arrangement and is significantly more rock-oriented.)
”Turn Of The Century” is one of the more difficult pieces for us to play on stage. You really got to be on top to play that on stage. A lot of the parts don’t have any time signatures, so you have to listen really intently to what the other guys are playing.”
– Alan White
”Parallels”
“Parallels,” composed by Chris Squire, brings the album back to rock music in quite an impressive way. When it comes to Yes, their rock naturally includes a trick or two that sets them apart from the mediocrity. The most obvious twist in “Parallels” is the grand organ of St. Martin’s Church, played masterfully by Wakeman, which resounds powerfully throughout the song. The same organ plays a central role in what is perhaps Wakeman’s finest original composition, “Judas Iscariot,” which he recorded shortly after Going For The One for his solo album Criminal Record (1976).
The life-affirming and optimism-filled “Parallels” is stylistically clearly related to the rocking and relatively straightforward prog tracks on Squire’s solo album Fish Out Of Water (1975)—and no wonder, since he originally composed the song specifically for that album. Due to the length limitations of vinyl at the time, the song didn’t make the cut, but fortunately it found a new home on Going For The One. Of course, it was significantly rearranged—for example, electric guitar wasn’t originally planned for the song at all.
Although a small part for Howe was ultimately incorporated into the song, alongside Wakeman’s organ, “Parallels” is naturally the track on the album where Squire’s bass guitar comes through most clearly. It drives the song forward, often taking on a role that in most rock bands would belong to the electric guitar. “Parallels” suffers a bit, however, from the fact that Squire’s bass doesn’t sound quite as full-bodied as one might hope. This is a problem with the album in general, as it suffers from a sound that’s a bit too treble-heavy.
Alongside the interplay between Squire’s bass and Wakeman’s organ, a similar dialogue unfolds on the vocal front, with Anderson and Squire handling the vocals on “Parallels” fairly evenly. At times they sing in unison, and at other times one of their voices takes the lead. The vocals are mostly impressive, but in some places Anderson’s and Squire’s singing veers almost into shouting. In fact, the same problem was already somewhat evident on the title track. It feels as though not as much attention was paid to the vocal recording on Going For The One as on some of Yes’s earlier (or later) albums.
“Parallels” is a song which, in my opinion, the version recorded for Going For The One doesn’t quite live up to its full potential. Part of the reason lies with the production. The richer soundscape of Fish Out Of Water might have done the song more justice. It’s a shame that producer/engineer Eddie Offord was no longer involved in recording Going For The One. As I understand it, Offord let things get out of hand with various illegal substances, and Yes decided to end their collaboration with him after the Relayer album. Offord, who had worked extensively with Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, never regained the level of success he had enjoyed in his heyday.
”Wonderous Stories”
“Wonderous Stories,” composed solely by Anderson, is the lightest track on the album. It’s a delicate, semi-acoustic pop ballad with slight classical influences reminiscent of the Renaissance era. The song would actually have fit perfectly into the repertoire of the prog band Renaissance, and Steve Howe did, in fact, record a version of it in the ’90s with Renaissance vocalist Annie Haslam. Led by Howe’s 12-string Portuguese guitar, the beautiful and dreamlike “Wonderous Stories” became Yes’s biggest hit since “Roundabout” and, amid the racket of punk, climbed as high as No. 7 on the British singles charts. “Wonderous Stories” is a pleasant song, but I don’t consider it particularly significant within the context of Yes’s music.
”Awaken”
After a light pop track, we move on to the album’s most epic track, the nearly 16-minute-long “Awaken.” “Awaken,” which closes Going For The One, also brings an era in Yes’s history to a close. It is the last true Yes classic from the 1970s to emerge from the collaboration between Anderson and Howe.
For nearly ten years, Yes had been pushing their music further and further, breaking the boundaries of popular music and constantly searching for something entirely new. With the exception of “Turn of the Century,” the earlier tracks on the album represented, to some extent, a return to a simpler style and an expression that generally respected the familiar conventions of popular music. Going For The One took a few steps backward, stylistically bringing Yes back to the atmosphere of The Yes Album. “Awaken” is in a league of its own. “Awaken,” like “Close To The Edge,” “Gates Of Delirium,” and even “Ancient” before it, reaches for the sun, defying the boundaries and structures of pop music.
“Awaken” begins with Wakeman’s virtuoso grand piano intro, in which he plays in his familiar, highly ornate style. Soon, Anderson’s passionately sung vocals join in, and the music in the background becomes more ethereal. The whole band kicks in around the two-minute mark with jangling percussion that lends the music a tribal atmosphere. Various clinking and jangling percussion instruments play a significant role throughout the song and bring a whole new kind of atmosphere to “Awaken.”
Anderson practically proclaims his mystical lyrics as if in a religious trance, and within a few minutes the band masterfully weaves its way through a rhythmic labyrinth of about ten time-signature changes. Among these, according to those more mathematically gifted than I am, is a rhythm as exotic as 9/32. Steve Howe occasionally takes the lead with his crisp, fiery guitar runs.
At around the seven-minute mark, a remarkable minimalist section begins. A tinkling, tuned percussion instrument (a bell tree, perhaps?) played by Alan White performs a childlike and stubbornly repetitive pattern, which Anderson’s harp complements with a counter-melody. Then Wakeman’s organ begins to swirl around everything, sounding with a subtle, flute-like tone. Gradually, the tempo picks up, and the organ sound gains more and more power and edge. The hypnotic, trance-like atmosphere persists for a few minutes, however, until Howe’s crisp electric guitar sound finally, at the ten-minute mark, leads the song into a new, majestic theme with the choir sighing in the background. Wakeman isn’t always known for his good taste, but on “Awaken” he does a magnificent job, especially when playing the grand piano or church organ. Not all of his Polymoog sounds may hit the mark quite as well, but they don’t detract from the song either.
The chorus section builds up to one more powerful crescendo before the song fades out, ending with Anderson’s vocals accompanied by ethereally tinkling bells, a synthesizer, and the rolling rumble of timpani. I know that some people find the understated ending of “Awaken” anticlimactic. To me, it’s simply a truly beautiful and moving conclusion to the song.
“Awaken” is progressive rock at its best in the sense that it offers a wealth of mind-bending technical virtuosity and yet still manages to convey a truly powerful emotional charge. The song manages to move me even though I can’t claim to understand Anderson’s lyrics, which—after a few more straightforward passages—once again take on a very abstract style as they address a theme apparently very familiar to him: enlightenment and the pursuit of a higher spiritual plane.
“Awaken” is a brightly resonant (it contains hardly any dissonance, unlike Yes’s epic works from previous years) cosmic hymn that charmingly blends neoclassicism with ancient tribal vibes. It is one of Yes’s most magnificent compositions and, at the same time, the band’s last true masterpiece of the 1970s.
Read also
- Review: Yes – Going For The One (1977)
- Levyarvio: Echolyn – Mei (2002)
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- Levyarvio: Khatsaturjan – Monologue Of Chronos (2026)
- Levyarvio: Porcupine Tree – In Absentia (2002)
- Review: Univers Zero – s/t (1977)
- Year by Year : Best albums of 1977 – 11-20
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Yes reached the pinnacle of their musical career with Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer. By the time of Going For The One, it was time to start coming back down to the level of ordinary mortal musicians. Going For The One is, in part, a step back toward the band’s more straightforward rock era, but on the other hand, the band also explored new territory in an intriguing way on the album with the delicate and sophisticated art song “Turn of the Century” and the complex “Awaken,” which is harmonically clearer than before and blends neoclassicism with tribal hypnoticism. Unfortunately, the band did not consistently follow either of these directions in the future.Going For The One is more uneven than Yes’s three previous albums, but thanks to its brightest highlights, it deserves its place among the top tier of Yes albums.
Going For The One received a largely positive reception from critics upon its release. The album was also a commercial success, debuting at number one on the UK album chart—just like its predecessor, Tales From Topography—and reaching as high as number seven in the U.S. The six-month tour that followed the album’s release was one of the band’s most successful to date and included, among other things, six sold-out shows at Wembley Arena. The rise of AOR and punk had not yet managed to slow down the triumphant march of Yes, the standard-bearers of progressive rock. However, difficult times were already just around the corner…
Best tracks: ”Awaken” ja ”Turn Of The Century”
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Tracks
Side A
- ”Going for the One” Jon Anderson 5:30
- ”Turn of the Century” Anderson, Steve Howe, Alan White 7:58
- ”Parallels” Chris Squire 5:52
Side B
- ”Wonderous Stories” Anderson 3:45
- ”Awaken” Anderson, Howe 15:38
Musicians
Jon Anderson: vocals, harp Steve Howe: steel guitar, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, vachalia, pedal steel guitar, backing vocals Chris Squire: bass guitar, fretless bass guitar, 8-string bass, backing vocals Rick Wakeman: piano, keyboards, St. Martin’s church organ, Polymoog synthesizer, choir arrangement (“Awaken”) Alan White: drums, percussion, tuned percussion
Ars Laeta: choir (”Awaken”) Richard Williams Singers: choir (”Awaken”)
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