40th Anniversary of Roundabout

The year is 1972. An ominous backward piano chord emanates from the FM radio airwaves. Suddenly, an eerie mood is punctuated by a melancholic classical guitar. A sense of anticipation quickly begins to build. A baroque-sounding guitar fill is leading somewhere . . . A slight pause, then, a hypnotically serpentine bass line kicks the music into high gear. “I’ll be the Roundabout . . . the words will make you out and out.”

Catchy, cryptic, and instantly classic, Roundabout leapt out of the airwaves like panther pouncing on its prey. The instrumentation and arrangement seemed partly classical, but the music really rocked. Natural harmonics, a counterpart chorus coda, newfangled synthesizers, exotic multilayered percussion, and a rock singer who sounded like he belonged in a choir, these were just some of the striking elements that swept listeners off their feet some 40 true summers ago.

“I will remember you. Your silhouette will charge the view of distant atmosphere.” Roundabout dazzled lyrically as well as musically. But most of all, this was music that seemed to paint pictures with sound. Yes – composed from Chris Squire’s volcanic bass, Steve Howe’s angular fretwork, Bill Bruford’s deft percussion, Rick Wakeman’s incredibly florid keyboards, and Jon Anderson’s ethereal vocals -- marked a new development in rock. Yes was a rock band that aimed to have the same aesthetic impact as classical composers and symphony orchestras.

Roundabout conjured up imagery with sound. The tempestuous middle section (“Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down on the land”) is as intense and imagistic as anything in rock. Chris Squire’s thunderous bass, Rick Wakeman’s lightning fast keyboards, Bill Bruford’s mesmerizing percussion, and Steve Howe’s tightly-coiled guitar work are woven together to create an atmospheric tapestry of sound, which listeners can embroider with their own imaginations.

Roundabout seems tailor-made for imaginative interpretations. Bassist Chris Squire has always been reluctant to discuss the meaning of Roundabout because he believes listeners should approach the song with their own perspectives. To paraphrase the novelist Umberto Eco, art should be inexhaustible. That is, good art, poetry, and music will always yield fresh new interpretations and sources of meaning.

In a recent interview, Anderson and Wakeman relate how they wanted to create music that would be of interest and relevance decades hence. Well, it has been forty years since Roundabout hit the airwaves, but in many ways the song still seems timeless. In fact, the Times of London once wagered that Yes was the one rock band that people would be listening to centuries from now. It’s an astonishing thought, but then phase that began with Roundabout, and which includes Close to the Edge, The Gates of Delirium, and Tales from Topographic Oceans constitutes some pretty astonishing music.