Roundabout

Anderson and Howe began it in March 1971 on the Yes Album tour, during a drive from Aberdeen towards Glasgow through what Anderson remembered as about forty roundabouts. A loch along the way gave him one line, and getting home to his wife Jennifer another. He called it a happy song, a sort of Scottish jig, while Howe said the first idea had been a suite for guitar. Peter Banks later claimed the main riff was his, but the credit stayed with Anderson and Howe.

It was recorded at Advision in August and September 1971. The opening is a piano chord played backwards, which Eddy Offord spent a long time arranging on tape, and Howe cut his classical guitar parts in the corridor because the main room sounded too dead. Wakeman played his Hammond solo in a single take. Atlantic edited the song to 3:27 for an American single without telling the band, and Anderson first heard the edit on the radio. It reached 13 on the Hot 100 in April 1972, their best American single until Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Live and after

It is the song Yes have played most: setlist.fm logs 2,299 performances and Forgotten Yesterdays 2,066, starting on the first night of the Fragile tour at Barnstaple in September 1971. Live versions are on Yessongs and Keys to Ascension, and at the 2017 Hall of Fame induction Geddy Lee played bass in Squire's place. It turns up in School of Rock, and as the closing theme of the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in 2012 it became the To Be Continued meme. WhoSampled lists 26 covers and 33 samples, from the Germs to Yasiin Bey. The upload in the hypersongs web is a label remaster of the full album version.