What Makes This Song Great? Ep.36 YES

Hey everyone, I'm Rick Beato - on today's Everything Music it's "What Makes This Song Great" Episode 36 The band is YES, and the song is "Roundabout". Coming up next. Roundabout was the second single off YES's "Fragile" record which came out on November 12 1971 the song was written by singer John Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe and the record was produced By Yes and Eddy Offord. Just for a point of reference I decided to go back and look at what songs were on the charts or had been released in 1971 Big rock songs! I remember when Roundabout actually came out. So here are some of the songs: "Stairway To Heaven" "Imagine" "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye "Maggie May", Rod Stewart. "American Pie", Don McClean. "Won't Get Fooled Again", The Who. "Brown Sugar" by the Stones. "Baba O'Riley", "Riders On The Storm" "Aint No Sunshine", "Rock And Roll" Zeppelin, "Changes" Bowie, "Black Dog" Zeppelin "Aqualung" so Roundabout was in the midst of a lot of incredibly great songs and It was really unique at the time this was on their fourth record and I remember they had an edited radio version that was about I'd say three minutes and almost fifty seconds -- 3:47 something like that, but then the full-length version's about eight minutes long We're gonna talk about the full length version today Because when I got the record after hearing the single I put on the record with the full length version There's all these solos and things in it, and it was really fascinating Let's talk about the intro of the song because it has a very iconic Introduction, it actually starts with a very cool sound effect that leads into the harmonics on the guitar. Let's check it out Now I always wondered what that was it sounds kind of like a piano, but I'd never heard that sound before I heard that and it's something that Producers use all the time nowadays. That is a backwards piano That leads right into this harmonic It's actually two E minor chords both hardpan one on each side and they are both reversed here's what it sounds like in forward motion So these two E minor chords lead into the opening harmonic sequence, which is this part So and then back Then he goes to that C there which is really C major And then the reversed C major chord happens Back into the harmonic here's what the C major chord sounds like in forward motion This technique of using a reverse chord Is used all the time in music. You'll hear this a lot of times to give you a sudden jolt into a section you take something with a sharp transient like a piano or a guitar that has an initial sharp attack and A long sustain and then if you reverse it ramps up and this sucks into a hard stop and then you put something after these it's very common to use these kind of things going into a chorus or anything where you want to make a real dramatic impact It's no different than a crescendo in you know with any brass instrument or string instrument or anything like that Use this in this exact same way the third time And then we're in to the Anyone that was into YES in the 70s knows the lick -- it starts on D major and then Walks down a c-major and then And then into the harmonic part, that's the part that most people don't know I'm gonna solo the guitars here check them out Along with the harmonics and the guitars the bass and drums enter with this part This is one of the coolest bass parts in any YES tune. Chris Squire was an amazing bass player. Here is his solo -- check it out And here's the drum solo, this is Bill Bruford who's one of the greatest fusion drummers ever That drum fill that Bill just played leads you into the verse and goes along with this guitar and drum part And then we're in with the vocals. Here's the verse "The words will make you out and out and spend the day your wa----y" "Call it morning driving through the sun and in and out the valle--------y" Incredibly great singing by Jon Anderson. Everybody that knows YES knows that Jon was an incredible singer and still is. All of the vocals here are double-tracked Meaning he's sang it once then sang it again It thickens it up when you have a really busy track a really dense track The double-tracking is not only a stylistic feature It also helps the vocal cut through a dense mix. The vocal melody is simply over an E minor vamp That's what I would call this whole section this And then you have that climbing line. Here's where the guitar and bass do during it The descending progression that just went by is B minor. B minor over A, G major 7 To G 11. In the same section the organ enters with an arpeggio figure. Check it out It starts out on a B minor triad over the B minor go right - does it two times and then it ends on a.... sounds like.. A C G -- he's playing over the Gsus And he does a descending glissando. When the chorus enters there's a really great guitar part That's that that is one of the hook-iest parts in the song. Check it out It's made up of a left and a right part, here's the left part Kind of like an amp this sounds like a DI part Let's check out the vocals in the beginning of the chorus Also during the chorus we have the organ line So this whole section's just based on triads, He starts G major and then C FC FC G and then G C F G Bb So he starts out arpeggiating That's G major then that's C to F C to F and then Back to G major and the second time through he goes then Then to B flat major root position second inversion first inversion second inversion first inversion Back to reposition that manages to B-flat. He's in his second inversion B-flat major chord, we next head into the interlude before the second verse Same thing - there's a cool Mini-Moog part This is a double-track Mini-Moog that Mini-Moog had just actually come out in 1970 I believe I'll split the tracks Played in thirds. There's a really cool drum fill that goes along with this Moog riff. Check it out The second verse is almost an exact repeat of the first "They make the children really ring - I spend the day your way.." Love that slight ritard There's a slight ritard here and this is what happens when you don't play to a click and you play live Back in the old old days. Okay, so you'll hear that they slightly delay these hits it's great This is what's great about old school bands all the Classic bands when they weren't playing to a click, and they were playing on tape, and they had played this stuff live, you have this Tempo that that can breathe and when they slow down here it makes it really powerful check it out Then back into it That's....I can't stress that enough... this is one of the great things about not playing to a click and playing live that you can never recreate. There's that delayed feel there It just makes the chorus when it comes back into tempo sound even that much more powerful. Listen again BOOM! Back in... Back into the riff What can you say? I love once again that aggressive bass of Chris Squire That Rickenbacker, it's got so much grit to it, you know? Listen this when he comes in with the drums there That is some real rock & roll playing right there! The second chorus starts out the same as the first Virtually identical riff comes in Now the vocals are never the same because this isn't Pro Tools Or they're flying everything around There's no way that anybody's gonna track vocals like that on Pro Tools They're gonna be flying stuff around -- just sing it one time. This is all sung They probably didn't remember what they sang in the first chorus and these parts are a little bit different which really makes it cool check out the bass though here at the end of this chorus because really Listen this reminds me and this is really where Geddy Lee gets his sound from. I think he's a huge Chris Squire fan So well, then we go into this transition section here We're in the backwards piano again, and then we go into this So there's a there's a percussion jam that comes in right here. Check this out -- everybody's heard this but.. Timbales.... Got this clave part there. It's almost like a like a Samba... And then you have this riff So that's the main guitar part that happens there after that descending riff The organ plays in unison Over this riff we have this really great vocal bridge part listen "along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down on the land.." "Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees the rim of the land.." "The eagle's dancing wings create as weather spins out of hand.." What I really like about this is that there's a great stereo spread to the vocals it sounds really wide all the layering is Incredibly cool. Then we go to this really cool guitar organ part. Check it out when I Used to listen to I always wondered what the two parts were doing. It's at when I solo them It's easy to hear but the way that they harmonize with each other Check out so here's organ And here's the guitars And here's what they sound like together just solo So it repeats again... Check out the drumming over this here - the drumming and the percussion Timbale roll... And then we're back to the intro -- harmonic part - but the keyboard organs playing B minor triad here Then it goes the C major triad and then Then it does that E minor triad It's an inversion play Back to C major And then we go into the beautiful part with the mellotron and vocals here It sounds like Strawberry Fields sound And the keyboard swells into the solo and the vocals along this Beautiful Here's the harmony part there on the last line: "twenty four before my love and I'll be there......." It's awesome along with the mellotron part there's a arpeggio in the organ still And next we move into the organ solo Let me solo it for you, it's unbelievable check it out starts with the swell riff - into the guitar solo Let me solo the guitar there Now we're to the backwards guitar solo - - check it out! Then you hear the guitar doubling the bassline I think that's Chris Squire actually doing that. The end of the song has one more really important hook that everybody knows. This part Really drenched in reverb Because 8 times keeps adding a vocal And then And it does the Picardy third the E major chord at the end instead of E minor That's all for now, please subscribe here to my "Everything Music" YouTube channel If you're interested in the Beato book go to my website at www.RickBeato.com And follow me on instagram at rick Beato one. Thanks for watching

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 1,383,244

Rating: 4.9601455 out of 5

Keywords: 70s pop hits, pop song analysis, hit song analysis, music theory, Rick Beato, Everything Music, YES, music analysis, music production, what makes this song great?, progressive rock, yes roundabout, seventies pop hits, progressive rock music, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Bill Bruford, fragile yes, roundabout yes, Prog rock, Geddy Lee, steve howe roundabout lesson, yes wmtsg, rock mixing, rick beato what makes this song great

Id: SFisOTDzGuE

Length: 22min 25sec (1345 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/delha4]

It gives me eargasms, that's what makes it great!

[u/arghthisnamedoesntfi]

Oh, cool, it's back! I remember this video being taken down a couple months ago. Really interesting to hear the tracks separately.

[u/rogerwilcobravo]

That part at the end totally sounds like strawberry fields. I never heard it before. I love the way he breaks them down