“Awaken” by Yes

Going for the One, the eighth Yes studio album, arrived in 1977 with the band cutting their songs down to size, all but one: "Awaken", the fifteen-minute closer written by Jon Anderson and Steve Howe. They made the record as tax exiles at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, producing it themselves, with Patrick Moraz shown the door and Rick Wakeman back on keyboards after quitting in 1974.

Everybody gets room to roam. Anderson sings lead and plays harp, Howe switches between acoustic, electric and pedal steel guitar and joins Chris Squire on backing vocals, Squire anchors it on bass, Alan White works the drums and cymbals, and Wakeman piles on organ and keyboards. It's the towering, long-form Yes that the rest of the album mostly set aside, given one more grand airing.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.