This isn’t the only excellent Yes song.
But when I put on their History of Yes set, sorted randomly, I was quickly shunted into despair.
All the talk about virtuosity here, the reason we thought these songs were rock songs were because the drums spoke to us. The bass, too.
Wakefield. Capes. Pawns. As rock fans in the day this came out, it wasn’t exotic. It was music that evolved naturally out of Traffic and the Moody Blues and whatever.
Bruford is amazing it’s true. So is Steve Howe for that matter, and so is Chris Squire.
They made two good albums, the Yes Album and Fragile. I have to report, when I told a few of my children that Jon Anderson was a man, they expressed incredulity.
At times they rock out. The Neil Young/ early Mott thing at the end of this for example:
Is this prog? It definitely rocks, my fave tune of theirs: