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Yes: Fragile

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 1972
Time:
 42:12
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Yes, Eddie Offord
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: yesworld.com
Appears with: Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire
Purchase date: 1998.03.14
Price in €: 10,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Roundabout (Anderson/Howe) - 8:29
[2] Cans and Brahms (Brahms) - 1:35
[3] We Have Heaven (Anderson) - 1:30
[4] South Side of the Sky (Anderson/Squire) - 8:04
[5] Five Per Cent for Nothing (Bruford) - :35
[6] Long Distance Runaround (Anderson) - 3:33
[7] Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) (Squire) - 2:35
[8] Mood for a Day (Howe) - 2:57
[9] Heart of the Sunrise (Anderson/Bruford/Squire) - 10:34

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Rick Wakeman - Organ, Synthesizer, Piano, Harpsichord, Keyboards, Electric Piano, Mellotron, Producer
Jon Anderson - Vocals, Producer
Bill Bruford - Percussion, Drums, Producer
Steve Howe - Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Vocals, Producer
Chris Squire - Bass Guitar, Vocals, Producer

Eddie Offord - Producer, Engineer
Roger Dean - Design, Photography
Gary Martin - Assistant Engineer
Brian Lane - Arranger

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Track 2 is an adaptation of Brahms' "Fourth Symphony in E minor, Third Movement" by Rick Wakeman. The original title of track 5 was "Suddenly It's Wednesday."



Exclusive Review from Rolling Stones:

The sure and steady pace at which Yes has progressed through their four albums seems to suit them just fine, and in "Fragile" the fruit is at last beginning to ripen.

Some problems remain, however: They're good and they know it, so they tend to succumb to the show-off syndrome. Their music (notably "Cans and Brahms" and "We Have Heaven") often seems designed only to impress and tries too hard to call attention to itself. Is anyone really still excited by things like "Five tracks on this album are individual ideas, personally arranged and organized by the five members of the band. . . etc."? They've got it in them to do a lot more than provide fodder for those strange people who get it off to visions of keyboard battles between Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson. Then too, with the nimble Wakeman and his many instruments, a guitarist (Steve Howe) who can finger-pick like the devil and, apparently, a wealth of collective imagination, they could inject at least a tad more variety into their work. As it is, most of the songs sound like variations on one idea rather than distinct entities sharing a common style.

But make no mistake - the Yes people have a lot to be excited over. Gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise and energetic performances, cryptic but evocative lyrics - when all these present Yes is quite boggling and their potential seemingly unlimited.

As in the opening "Roundabout," marked by a thick, chugging texture which almost imperceptibly accumulates, during deceptively innocent little breaks and fills, a screaming, shattering intensity that builds and builds until suddenly everything drops away but Wakeman's liquid organ trills, some scattered guitar notes and Jon Anderson's pure, plaintive voice: "In and around the lake/Mountains come out of the sky and they/Stand there." It's a tour-de-force, a complete knockout, and perhaps the most quietly devastating moment to appear on a record in recent memory.

The heavily atmospheric "South Side of the Sky" is also a grabber, a song that goes from full chorus and band (that's loud) to a segment that is nearly Oriental in its pristine simplicity - just wandering piano, electronic swirlings and the whoosh of an icy wind. "Heart of the Sunrise" is the third extended cut, and it puts everything they've got into a wide-ranging and most impressive package which demonstrates that progressive (remember progressive rock?) doesn't mean sterile and that complex isn't the same thing as inaccessible.

When it's all working, the music made by Yes is what the best music always is, a powerful and moving emotional experience. It's probably the first music to come along since some of the Kinks' older stuff that actually brings the beginning of tears to these jaded eyes of mine. Don't bet it can't happen to you. (RS 104)

Copyright © 1968-1998 Rolling Stone Network. All Rights Reserved.



"...Gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise ... "

Rolling Stone 3/16/72, p.56



The band's breakthrough album, dominated by science-fiction and fantasy elements and new member Rick Wakeman, whose organ, synthesizers, Mellotrons, and other keyboard exotica added a larger-than-element to the procedings. Ironically, the album was a patchwork job, hastily assembled in order to cover the cost of Wakeman's array of instruments. But the group built effectively on the groundwork left by The Yes Album, and group had an AM-radio sucker-punch, aimed at all of those other progressive bands who eschewed the notion of hit singles, in the form of "Roundabout," the edited version (sort of "highlights" of the album version) of which pulled in millions of young kids who'd never heard them before. The single clicked, most album-buyers liked the long version and all of the rest of what they found, and the band was made. Remastered in much improved sound and graphics in 1995, under the above catalog number, with a reference to "digital remastering" across the top back of the jewel case.

Bruce Eder - All Music Guide



"Kaye was replaced by Rick Wakeman on 'Fragile', the album that established Yes (and art-rock in general) as a cultural force."

ROLLING STONE ALBUM GUIDE ****



"The breakthrough album for the band, in which the sciene-fiction and fantasy elements of the songs became dominant and the addition of Rick Wakeman on organ added a larger-than-life element to the group's sound."

All-Music Guide *****



You can say a lot of nasty things about progressive rock, and many people have - most frequently, that the genre emphasizes musical chops over soulful expression. Still, prog rock cannot be faulted for lack of youthful ambition: In the case of Yes, the British band's often overbearing pretentiousness resulted in moments of rare grace and beauty, a bizarre and fleeting - if totally unrealistic - coupling of classical textures with rock & roll pathos.

Curiously enough, Yes' 1969 debut is a relatively down-to-earth affair - and a not very inspired one at that. The quintet's reworking of the Beatles' "Every Little Thing" illustrates its knack for mysterioso, angelic harmonies, led by singer Jon Anderson. But the band's original compositions are sketchy at best. The psychedelic Time and a Word, from 1970, offers little improvement, perhaps because of the dubious decision to attach an entire symphony orchestra to the already cluttered arrangements.

It was the addition of Steve Howe's guitar pyrotechnics that finally allowed Yes to find their true identity. The following year's Yes Album is a gigantic leap forward, with extended workouts such as the ethereal "Starship Trooper" emphasizing the band members' individual virtues. In Bill Bruford, Yes had a hip, jazzy drummer; in Chris Squire, a bassist willing to dominate the mix with his elephantine lines; and in Tony Kaye, an organist who used his Hammond sparingly, for funkier effect.

Kaye was unceremoniously dismissed so that virtuoso Rick Wakeman could join in, perfecting the definitive Yes sound. Sure enough, 1972's Fragile is quintessential classic rock. "Roundabout" is an undeniable prog-pop singalong, but the album's happiest moments are subtle, brief passages such as the bucolic instrumental segment of "South Side of the Sky" and the gleefully baroque line that Wakeman repeats hypnotically during the climax of "Heart of the Sunrise." Fragile is the kind of album that affords revisionists a chance to reconsider the merits of the art-rock school. Die-hard Yes fans will cherish these reissues' pristine remastering. The bonus tracks are lackluster -- a handful of previously released single versions of songs and rough mixes. The only notable curio is a newly unearthed studio take of Howe's bubbly guitar instrumental "The Clap." As for nonfans: Even you have to admit, if Yes hadn't reached so high, we wouldn't still be paying attention now.

ERNESTO LECHNER - Rolling Stone
(RS 915 – February 6, 2003)
 

 L y r i c s


Roundabout

I’ll be the roundabout
The words will make you out ’n’ out
And change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley

The music dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I'll spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see you
Ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be there with you

I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and even in the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see you
Ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be there with you

Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees the rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers by in our hand
Next to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a millions years

I’ll be the round about
The words will make you out ’n’ out
I’ll be the round about
The words will make you out ’n’ out

I’ll be the round about
The words will make you out ’n’ out
And change the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see you
Ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be there with you

Cans and Brahms *


Extracts from Brahms’ 4th Symphony in E Minor Third Movement; Arranged by Wakeman


(Instrumental)


We Have Heaven

Tell the Moon-dog, tell the March-hare
Tell the Moon-dog, tell the March-hare
We...have...heaven
To Look around, to look around
Yes, he is here; Yes, he is here


South Side of the Sky

A river a mountain to be crossed
The sunshine in mountains sometimes lost
Around the south side so cold that we cried
Were we ever colder on that day a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity

Move forward was my friends only cry
In deeper to somewhere we could lie
And rest for the day with cold in the way
Were we ever colder on that day a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity

The moments seemed lost in all the noise
A snow storm a stimulating voice
Of warmth of the sky of warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day a million miles away
We seemed for all of eternity

The sunshine in mountains sometimes lost
The river can disregard the cost
And melt in the sky to warmth when you die
Were we ever warmer on that day a million miles away
It seemed from all of eternity


Five Per Cent for Nothing

(Instrumental)


Long Distance Runaround

Long distance run around
long time waiting to feel the sound
I still remember the dream there
I still remember the time you said goodbye
did we really tell lies
letting in the sunshine
did we really count to one hundred

Cold summer listening
hot colour melting the anger to stone
I still remember the dream there
I still remember the time you said goodbye
did we really tell lies
letting in the sunshine
did we really count to one hundred

Long distance run around
long time waiting to feel the sound
I still remember the dream there
I still remember the time you said goodbye

Cold summer listening
hot colour melting the anger to stone
I still remember the dream there
I still remember the time you said goodbye
did we really tell lies
letting in the sunshine
did we really count to one hundred

Looking for the sunshine


The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)

(Instrumental)


Mood For a Day

(Instrumental)


Heart of the Sunrise

Love comes to you and you follow
Lose one on to the Heart of the Sunrise
SHARP-DISTANCE
How can the wind with its arms all around me

Lost on a wave and then after
Dream on on to the Heart of the Sunrise
SHARP-DISANCE
How can the wind with so many around me
Lost in the city

Lost in their eyes as you hurry by
Counting their broken ties they decide
Love comes to you and then after
Dream on on to the Heart of the Sunrise
Lost on a wave but you're dreaming
Dream on on to the Heart of the Sunrise
SHARP-DISTANCE
How can the wind with its arms all around me
SHARP-DISTANCE
How can the wind with so many around me
I feel lost in the city

Lost in their eyes as you hurry by
Counting their broken ties they decided

Straight light moving and removing
SHARPNESS of the colour sun shine
Straight light searching all the meanings of the song
Long last treatment of the telling that
Relates to all the words sung
Dreamer easy in the chair that really fits you

Love comes to you and then after
Dream on on to the Heart of the Sunrise
SHARP-DISTANCE
How can the sun with its arms all around me
SHARP-DISTANCE
How can the wind with so many around me
I feel lost in the city

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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