Yessongs

The Fragile and Close to the Edge tours had producer and engineer Eddy Offord travelling with the band as their live sound mixer who operated a sound system developed by the Clair Brothers. In addition, co-founder Roy Clair assisted with the operation of the system, and Geoff Haslam was hired as the recording engineer alongside assistant Mike Dunn to work on Yessongs.[1] As Offord was in charge of the band's sound on stage, he could not operate the recording equipment at the same time. This resulted in recordings that he was disappointed with as they were substandard. When it was time for the album to be edited and remixed, Offord and the band retreated to studio 2 at Advision Studios in Fitzrovia, London to complete it. Howe recalled the group treated the mixing process with as much care and importance as one of their studio albums with careful consideration to the preparation of the various edits and the finished product.[2]

Two tracks were recorded live at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London

Yessongs begins with "Opening (Excerpt from 'Firebird Suite)", a piece of the closing section to the orchestral work The Firebird (1910) by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.[1] Yes have used the piece as the introductory music to most of their concerts since 1971, the year of the composer's death. The track segues into "Siberian Khatru" from Close to the Edge.[1] "Perpetual Change" and "Long Distance Runaround"/"The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" were recorded during the Fragile Tour with Bruford on drums,[1] and feature extended solos from Howe, Bruford and Squire compared to the studio versions. "Excerpts from 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'" is a keyboard solo spot formed of a medley of excerpts from Wakeman's first solo album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973), that he recorded during the Fragile and Close to the Edge tours. The solo is preceded by Anderson singing notes from the opening of the orchestral work The Rite of Spring (1913) by Stravinsky.[1] Yessongs includes a live rendition of "Starship Trooper" from The Yes Album (1971); the first time the band performed it live.

The album's liner notes do not list the track's recording dates, but audio comparisons of the album and the seven full recorded shows from the Close to the Edge tour officially released on Progeny: Seven Shows from Seventy-Two (2015) can be made,[1][3] in addition to the soundtrack to the band's concert film, Yessongs (1975).[4]

Recording locations:

• 19 and/or 23 February 1972 at the Academy of Music in New York City, New York – "Perpetual Change" and "Long Distance Runaround"/"The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)", as suggested by the band's 1973 Australian tour book[5]
• 1 November 1972 at Ottawa Civic Centre in Ottawa, Ontario – "Roundabout"
• 12 November 1972 at Greeensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina – "Heart of the Sunrise", "And You and I", the second half of "I've Seen All Good People"
• 15 November 1972 at Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee – "Siberian Khatru", the first two thirds of "Excerpts from 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'", "Yours Is No Disgrace"
• 20 November 1972 at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York – "Opening (Excerpt from 'Firebird Suite')", the final third of "Excerpts from 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'", "Mood for a Day"
• 15 and/or 16 December 1972 at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London – "Close to the Edge", "Starship Trooper"

Artist Roger Dean described his work on Yessongs as the most complex and elaborate of his career at the time

The album was originally presented in a gatefold sleeve with artwork designed and illustrated by the band's longtime associate, artist Roger Dean. His brother Martyn was responsible for its layout and additional photography, featuring shots of each member performing in concert.[1] Dean described his involvement on the album as "the most elaborate and complex package" of his career at the time which consisted of three albums worth of artwork plus a booklet.[6] The large space for Dean's work allowed him to continue a theme that "implied a story" that he had introduced in the artwork on Fragile, of which its back cover portrays a planet breaking into pieces and a spacecraft in flight, and had continued on the sleeve on Close to the Edge.[7] Dean recalled that talks about the album's artwork were scarce until he presented the group with a rough version of his "Pathways" painting which was well received. The positive reaction led Dean to link his four paintings on Yessongs to continue the narrative.[8] However, Dean had to redesign a new broken planet to the one on Fragile as the pieces of land that break off were too square shaped, so the pieces seen on Yessongs are more triangular.[9]

The first painting, named "Escape", shows the spacecraft and a planetary fragment drifting through space, finding a new world.[9] "Arrival" depicts these fragments landing in the waters of the new world, with "Awakening" showing signs of new life starting including plant and animal species.[9] The final image, "Pathways", depicts the emergence of civilisation with a city in the background.[9] The version with the girl sitting on top of the pathway structure was not in the original and was painted separately but added by the printers.[10] While Dean was working on the latter, his cat walked across this piece whilst still wet and its paw prints can be seen in the sky area. Dean tried to disguise them as clouds but it did not produce results he had wished for, so they remained visible. After it was photographed for the sleeve, Dean's cat urinated on the painting as it was standing against a wall, causing Dean to paint a new version that he said "looked quite different to the reproductions of it".[11][10]

In June 2013, Dean filed a $50 million lawsuit against director James Cameron for copyright and contributory infringement and unjust enrichment, claiming the design of Pandora, a fictional setting in Cameron's epic science fiction film Avatar (2009) and the highest grossing film at the time, was based on Dean's paintings including "Pathways" and used without permission.[12] The lawsuit was thrown out by judge Jesse M. Furman in September 2014 who disagreed and believed the court found no substantial similarities between the film and Dean's artwork.[13]

Yessongs was released in May 1973;[14] its release in the United States was on 4 May.[15] It was originally planned for February 1973, prior to the start of the band's early 1973 North American tour, but delays in printing its cover led to its release pushed back.[16] It peaked at number 7 on the UK Albums Chart [17] and number 12 on the US Billboard 200.[18] The album reached gold certification in March 1974 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for 500,000 copies shipped in the US. In 1998, the RIAA certified Yessongs as platinum for shipping one million copies, becoming one of the band's highest selling albums.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[19]
Rolling Stone	(not rated)[20]

Variety published a positive review, noting the album shows the band at "their exciting best".[21] Band biographer Tim Morse thought the album's downfall was its substandard audio quality despite the band's strong performances.[14]

Yessongs has been reissued several times:

• 1987 – 2-disc reissue on Atlantic Records
• 1994 – 2-disc remaster by Joe Gastwirt on Atlantic Records
• 2001 – 3-disc HDCD reissue by Isao Kikuchi on Warner Music Japan
• 2009 – 2-disc SHM-CD remaster by Isao Kikuchi on Warner Music Japan
• 2013 – 2-disc SACD reissue as part of the High Vibration – SACD Box set on Rhino Records