A Farewell to Kings

The band recorded for about three weeks at Rockfield in Wales, their first residential session, then mixed for about two weeks at Advision in London. Brown found the studio after a hard search. They worked from about seven in the evening until five in the morning. An outdoor courtyard gave some of the recording birdsong and reverb. Brown ties that to the intro of Closer to the Heart, while Lee ties it to the title track. Peart added orchestra bells, tubular bells and chimes to his kit, Lee added a Rickenbacker double-neck bass and a Minimoog, and Lifeson used a Moog Taurus bass pedal synthesizer. Lifeson's acoustic guitar introduction to the title track was recorded outside the building as he walked around a stereo microphone, and the opening line of Xanadu comes from Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan.

The album reached number eleven in Canada, number twenty-two in Britain and number thirty-three in the United States, and became their first American gold record in November 1977. Lee said in 1978 that, apart from 2112, it was the only one of their albums he could really live with. AllMusic's Greg Prato praised the improved songwriting, while Robert Christgau gave it a D. The tour ran to about 140 dates from August 1977 to May 1978. Billboard described the record on release as a lavishly orchestrated extravaganza with a rock opera feel. It also reached gold in Britain. Cygnus X-1 Book I ends with the words "To be continued" in the liner notes, and the story concludes on Hemispheres. Anthem, the label that issued the album in Canada, had been formed in May 1977 by Ray Danniels and Vic Wilson.