Hey everyone, I'm Rick Beato - on today's Everything Music it's "What Makes This Song Great" Episode 36
The band is YES, and the song is "Roundabout". Coming up next.
Roundabout was the second single off YES's "Fragile" record which came out on November 12
1971 the song was written by singer John Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe and the record was produced
By Yes and Eddy Offord. Just for a point of reference
I decided to go back and look at what songs were on the charts or had been released in 1971
Big rock songs!  I remember when Roundabout actually came out. So here are some of the songs: "Stairway To Heaven"
"Imagine"
"What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye
"Maggie May", Rod Stewart. "American Pie", Don McClean. "Won't Get Fooled Again", The Who. "Brown Sugar" by the Stones.
"Baba O'Riley", "Riders On The Storm" "Aint No Sunshine", "Rock And Roll" Zeppelin, "Changes" Bowie, "Black Dog" Zeppelin
"Aqualung" so Roundabout was in the midst of a lot of incredibly great songs and
It was really unique at the time this was on their fourth record
and I remember they had an edited radio version that was about I'd say three minutes and
almost fifty seconds -- 3:47 something like that, but then the full-length version's about eight minutes long
We're gonna talk about the full length version today
Because when I got the record after hearing the single I put on the record with the full length version
There's all these solos and things in it, and it was really fascinating
Let's talk about the intro of the song because it has a very iconic
Introduction, it actually starts with a very cool sound effect that leads into the harmonics on the guitar. Let's check it out
Now I always wondered what that was
it sounds kind of like a piano, but I'd never heard that sound before I heard that and it's something that
Producers use all the time nowadays. That is a backwards piano
That leads right into this harmonic
It's actually two E minor chords both hardpan one on each side and they are both reversed here's what it sounds like in
forward motion
So these two E minor chords lead into the opening harmonic sequence, which is this part
So and then back
Then he goes to that C there which is really C major
And then the reversed C major chord happens
Back into the harmonic here's what the C major chord sounds like in forward motion
This technique of using a reverse chord
Is used all the time in music. You'll hear this a lot of times to give you a sudden
jolt into a section you take something with a sharp transient like a piano or a guitar that has an initial sharp attack and
A long sustain and then if you reverse it ramps up and this sucks into a hard stop
and then you put something after these it's very common to use these kind of things going into a
chorus or anything where you want to make a real dramatic impact
It's no different than a crescendo in you know with any brass instrument or string instrument or anything like that
Use this in this exact same way the third time
And then we're in to the
Anyone that was into YES in the 70s knows the lick --  it starts on D major and then
Walks down a c-major and then
And then into the harmonic part, that's the part that most people don't know I'm gonna solo the guitars here check them out
Along with the harmonics and the guitars the bass and drums enter with this part
This is one of the coolest bass parts in any YES tune. Chris Squire was an amazing bass player. Here is his solo -- check it out
And here's the drum solo, this is Bill Bruford who's one of the greatest fusion drummers ever
That drum fill that Bill just played leads you into the verse and goes along with this guitar and drum part
And then we're in with the vocals. Here's the verse
"The words will make you out and out and spend the day your wa----y"
"Call it morning driving through the sun and in and out the valle--------y"
Incredibly great singing by Jon Anderson. Everybody that knows YES
knows that Jon was an incredible singer and still is. All of the vocals here are double-tracked
Meaning he's sang it once then sang it again
It thickens it up when you have a really busy track a really dense track
The double-tracking is not only a stylistic feature
It also helps the vocal cut through a dense mix. The vocal melody is simply over an E minor vamp
That's what I would call this whole section this
And then you have that climbing line. Here's where the guitar and bass do during it
The descending progression that just went by is
B minor. B minor over A, G major 7
To G 11. In the same section the organ enters with an arpeggio figure. Check it out
It starts out on a B minor triad over the B minor go right - does it two times and then it ends on a....
sounds like.. A C G --  he's playing over the
Gsus
And he does a descending glissando. When the chorus enters there's a really great guitar part
That's that that is one of the hook-iest parts in the song. Check it out
It's made up of a left and a right part, here's the left part
Kind of like an amp this sounds like a DI part
Let's check out the vocals in the beginning of the chorus
Also during the chorus we have the organ line
So this whole section's just based on triads, He starts G major and then C FC FC G and then
G C F G  Bb
So he starts out arpeggiating
That's G major then
that's C to F
C to F and then
Back to G major and the second time through he goes then
Then
to B flat major root position
second inversion first inversion second inversion first inversion
Back to reposition that manages to B-flat. He's in his second inversion
B-flat major chord, we next head into the interlude before the second verse
Same thing - there's a cool Mini-Moog part
This is a double-track Mini-Moog  that Mini-Moog had just actually come out in 1970 I believe
I'll split the tracks
Played in thirds. There's a really cool drum fill that goes along with this Moog riff. Check it out
The second verse is almost an exact repeat of the first
"They make the children really ring - I spend the day your way.."
Love that slight ritard
There's a slight ritard here and this is what happens when you don't play to a click and you play live
Back in the old old days. Okay, so you'll hear that they slightly delay these hits it's great
This is what's great about old school bands all the
Classic bands when they weren't playing to a click, and they were playing on tape, and they had played this stuff live, you have this
Tempo that that can breathe and when they slow down here it makes it really powerful check it out
Then back into it
That's....I can't stress that enough...
this is one of the great things about not playing to a click and
playing live that you can never recreate. There's that delayed feel there
It just makes the chorus when it comes back into tempo sound even that much more powerful. Listen again
BOOM!  Back in...
Back into the riff
What can you say?
I love once again that aggressive bass of Chris Squire
That Rickenbacker, it's got so much grit to it, you know? Listen this when he comes in with the drums there
That is some real rock & roll playing right there! The second chorus starts out the same as the first
Virtually identical riff comes in
Now the vocals are never the same because this isn't Pro Tools
Or they're flying everything around
There's no way that anybody's gonna track vocals like that on Pro Tools
They're gonna be flying stuff around --  just sing it one time. This is all sung
They probably didn't remember what they sang in the first chorus and these parts are a little bit different which really makes it cool
check out the bass though here at the end of this chorus because really
Listen this reminds me and this is really where Geddy Lee gets his sound from. I think he's a huge Chris Squire fan
So well, then we go into this transition section here
We're in the backwards piano again, and then we go into this
So there's a there's a percussion jam that comes in right here. Check this out -- everybody's heard this but..
Timbales....
Got this clave part there. It's almost like a like a Samba...
And then you have this riff
So that's the main guitar part that happens there after that descending riff
The organ plays in unison
Over this riff we have this really great vocal bridge part listen
"along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down on the land.."
"Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees the rim of the land.."
"The eagle's dancing wings create as weather spins out of hand.."
What I really like about this is that there's a great stereo spread to the vocals it sounds really wide all the layering is
Incredibly cool. Then we go to this really cool guitar organ part. Check it out when I
Used to listen to I always wondered what the two parts were doing. It's at when I solo them
It's easy to hear but the way that they harmonize with each other
Check out so here's organ
And here's the guitars
And here's what they sound like together just solo
So it repeats again...
Check out the drumming over this here -  the drumming and the percussion
Timbale roll...
And then we're back to the intro -- harmonic part - but the keyboard organs playing B minor triad here
Then it goes the C major triad and then
Then it does that E minor triad
It's an inversion play
Back to
C major
And then we go into the beautiful part with the mellotron and vocals here
It sounds like Strawberry Fields sound
And the keyboard swells into the solo and the vocals along this
Beautiful
Here's the harmony part there on the last line: "twenty four before my love and I'll be there......."
It's awesome along with the mellotron part there's a arpeggio in the organ still
And next we move into the organ solo
Let me solo it for you, it's unbelievable check it out starts with the swell
riff - into the guitar solo
Let me solo the guitar there
Now we're to the backwards guitar solo - - check it out!
Then you hear the guitar doubling the bassline
I think that's Chris Squire actually doing that. The end of the song has one more really important hook that everybody knows. This part
Really drenched in reverb
Because 8 times keeps adding a vocal
And then
And it does the Picardy third the E major chord at the end instead of E minor
That's all for now, please subscribe here to my "Everything Music" YouTube channel
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