Wonderous Stories

Anderson wrote it alone in Montreux on what he called a beautiful day, when the title phrase came to him, and described it as an appreciation of the joys of life. The record spells it Wonderous rather than the standard wondrous. His cassette demo of it, with the title track, helped convince Wakeman in October 1976 that Yes were writing songs again. At Mountain Studios Howe played Portuguese 12-string guitar, Wakeman played Polymoog, and White suggested that the drums and bass play on odd beats.

Released on 2 September 1977 as the album's first single, it reached seven in Britain and six in Ireland, and remains their highest-charting British single. Its promotional film, the band's first, and an appearance on Top of the Pops helped it along. Martin Popoff thought it perhaps the most beautiful of the band's quiet songs, and Geoff Downes has called it a hidden gem. Yes played it on the 1977 tour and have revived it often since 1998: setlist.fm logs 515 performances and Forgotten Yesterdays 534. The upload in the hypersongs web is the 1977 promotional film, which shows the band performing the song.