Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Yes
Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 1976
Running time: 38:39
Rating: 4/5
“Going For The One” (1977) is the album where, to the great delight of “Yes fans,” the most beloved “Yesman,” the “cape crusader” Rick Wakeman, (first) came back to Yes (“crusader” because of the cross around his neck, “cape” referring to his long scarlet cloak, which brought a dash of “glam” image to the band). Clearly that stretch of solo albums between “Relayer” (1974) and 1976 had a liberating effect, and “Going For The One” is yet another standout prog rock record, a fantastic fusion of the band members’ extraordinary individual talents, which once again peaked in an ear-friendly form straight from Yes’s own distinctive pen. So the public’s expectations paid off in one more classic Yes album. ‘Going For The One’ was recorded in Montreaux on Lake Geneva (Switzerland) and marks a revolutionary shift in production and style, a turn away from long-form epics toward shorter, simpler, more rock-defined songs.
Yes contributed their last epic of the seventies to ‘Going For The One’. An epic running a good fifteen minutes, called Awaken. Awaken is a kind of farewell, because after it Yes wouldn’t make anything like this esoteric epic with its cosmic, meditative effect for a long time (not until ‘Keys To Ascension’, 1996, and the track Mind Drive). Those of you already familiar with Howe’s first riff, which opens up through the swaying rhythm, know what ‘High vibration go on…to the sun …oh let my heart dreaming…past as mortal as me, where can I be….’ means, as it floods all the beings of the Earth with light on “…we can be here…” So our home is the sun.
Awaken is a pure hymn to the sun, and its sermon comes very close to the philosophy of Toltec spiritualism. We are from the sun! We are eternal! We are part of the divine and of God’s creation, so we can take everything we ask of the cosmos. Good and bad. The sun gives us life, fills us with love, sets us free. And if you turn your back on it? Well, you live in the dark (examples: today’s Western European civilization and, of course, everything connected with the USA).
A prayer to the creator (the sun) through song, its sincere plea coming from the bottom of the heart, begging to save us from the cauldron of madness that is our own existence (the verses before Wakeman’s organ-solo delirium). Then comes the plea to the sun (…songs cast a light on you…), the wish that the sun show us the way to complete spiritual transformation (…as eyes see young stars assemble…). Master (sun) of images, light, time and souls, let our thought be contact with you, so you cleanse us of all weakness, renew us and fill us with the power of sincere love for everything, and there’s no doubt about it anymore. You simply are, and we are your children. (That thought be contact, With all that’s clear, Be honest with yourself, There’s no doubt, no doubt).
And then the big finale. Blinded by my own fears, I ran away as fast as time runs (what symbolism, slave of time), and when I gathered my courage and looked back, the Sun was standing right there, it had always been standing right there, I just never noticed it (Like the time I ran away, And turn around, And you were standing close to me). A true hymn to the cosmos, of which we are a part. Even my computer’s Slovenian spellchecker doesn’t recognize the word ‘cosmos’, so we’ve really wandered far away. So the verse ‘Past a mortal as we, Here we can be,…’ is really an appeal: once you overcome all your fears (including the fear of death), you can remain in the light of the Sun, because you are part of the eternity of its creation.
“Going For The One” has five songs in total. Four are the shorter kind, each of them a potential hit, and two of them actually became hits. The title track and Parallels are proper rockers. The opening title track alone is a real shock for anyone who expected some special, meditative, stretched-out intro. A song branded by a steel pedal guitar riff hits you right away, with no rambling at all. You have to picture it: after a few years, a song with a beginning and an end again. Parallels is an out-and-out rock adventure and already hints at parallels with the upcoming Yes album “Tormato” (1978). It follows a bouncy rhythmic drive and features a dynamic contrast between Rick’s church organ and the playful rhythm section. Fluid and punchy all the way through. The bass snarl is separated out in the production more than ever before, so it really stands out in Parallels. Wedged in between the two faster moments is the gentle Turn Of The Century, where White shows how sophisticated his drumming can be, carrying a gorgeous weave of Wakeman’s classical piano arrangements and Howe’s slide work on the steel pedal guitar. The fourth song on the record became Yes’s biggest hit on British soil ever, called Wonderous Stories. It’s a fleeting acoustic counterpart to And You And I from “Close To The Edge” (1972). A perfect sonic picture with an extraordinary palette of multi-part vocals, gently floating through the sounds of stringed guitar arrangements (vachalia), piano and bass. Sensual and refined! Simply Yes-like! The sound is cleaner than ever, with each instrument equally expressive in the production and delicately separated from the others. Together they build a perfect sonic picture of musical balance that fills every last corner. This new edition also makes room for the bonus tracks Montreaux’s Theme, Vevey (Revisited) and Amazng Grace, which first officially appeared on the compilation ‘Yes Years’ (1991), plus never-released ‘garage’ versions of Going For The One, Parallels (with White’s ‘cowbell’), Turn Of The Century and Awaken, in its original form titled Eastern Number, where Anderson is only just searching for the right combination of melody and verses, which takes the listener straight into the band’s studio jam session.
“Going For The One” is a true Yes album, but in the same breath it marks a shift away from multi-part epic poems toward a more “consciously grounded,” punchier kind of progressive rock. All the Yes albums that followed offered some excellent individual moments, which here and there still conjured the familiar Yes magic, but Yes never again released an album that was this consistent throughout. Consistent in the sense that it offered an ideal mix of the great Yes magic of complexity and the extraction and decoding of that unique complexity into a language the ear can follow. So “Going For The One” fully lives out the wondrous Yes fairy tales of their classical era!
Lineup
Jon Anderson – vocals
Chris Squire – bass guitar and vocals
Rick Wakeman – keyboards
Alan White – drums
Steve Howe – guitar
Production
Bill Inglot
Tracklist
1. Going For The One (5:30)
2. Turn Of The Century (8:58)
3. Parallels (6:52)
4. Wonderous Stories (3:45)
5. Awaken (15:38)
