{"id":583920,"date":"2026-08-13T23:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/583920\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T23:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:16","slug":"why-steve-howes-favourite-yes-songs-are-mainly-from-the-1970s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/583920\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Steve Howe\u2019s favourite Yes songs are mainly from the 1970s"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2015 Prog asked Yes guitarist Steve Howe <\/a>to name his five favourite songs from his band\u2019s catalogue. As it turned out, all but one of them originated in the 70s. He explained why that was.<\/p>\n

Turn Of The Century<\/p>\n

From Going For The One (1977)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We went through a real vortex to find a way of presenting that song the way it is now, and it\u2019s so magical. It was really deep, the music had to work. It draws on the soft side of Yes, like And You And I and Wonderous Stories, and it was astounding.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

Jon<\/a> had written lyrics about a sculptor [Roan] and so there was a furthering of the connection in there. It was really interesting project, and that song really did feel like a project. Turn Of The Century is central to Going For The One.<\/p>\n

Turn of the Century (2003 Remaster) – YouTube
\n\"Turn<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nSiberian Khatru<\/p>\n

From Close To The Edge (1972)<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Well, I can\u2019t choose the title track because that\u2019s got so much in it! But \u2026Khatru\u2019s got a lot of elements that I think are really archetypal of the band at that time. Over the years when we were working on material we could have looked back and ask, \u201cWhat would we have done with this in the days of Close To The Edge<\/a>?\u201d Maybe sometimes we didn\u2019t ask that question enough.<\/p>\n

Siberian Khatru (2003 Remaster) – YouTube
\n\"Siberian<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nTempus Fugit<\/p>\n

From Drama<\/a> (1980)<\/p>\n

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My mind flashes to that album. I remember us playing Tempus Fugit before we actually met Trevor Horn<\/a> and Geoff Downes<\/a>, but they added to that immensely. Trevor wrote all the words, as far as I remember, and Geoff helped orchestrate it, and Chris Squire<\/a>, Alan White<\/a> and I invented an awful lot of the structure of the song.<\/p>\n

But the dynamic way we pulled it off, the speed was frightening. Songs often speed up on stage, but we always agree to play this one slower. There was a real drive to keep Yes going and Trevor and Geoff gave us a way to do it with relative ease. The direction was great on that album.<\/p>\n

Yes – Tempus Fugit (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Yes<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nSouth Side Of The Sky<\/p>\n

From Fragile<\/a> (1971)<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Ask me about Yes, and I\u2019m only looking at the 70s. Not that I dislike the albums we made after that \u2013 some of them are very good. But there was a wonderful innocence about the 70s albums. South Side Of The Sky is like Starship Trooper in that it has three different sections, and three different senses of development.<\/p>\n

It kind of rocks, and then it doesn\u2019t. Then it\u2019s light, partly down to the influences on the others \u2013 groups like the Fifth Dimension. It wasn\u2019t what I brought to the party, but it\u2019s a nice section.<\/p>\n

For the guitar solo section at the end we weren\u2019t content with a Leslie speaker so Mickey Tait \u2013 who went on to be a big sound and lighting guy \u2013 was spinning a microphone around his head to get that whooshing live sound. I can see him now with this microphone! There was a lot of fun experimentation.<\/p>\n

South Side of the Sky (2008 Remaster) – YouTube
\n\"South<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nThe Revealing Science Of God (Dance Of The Dawn)<\/p>\n

From Tales From Topographic Oceans<\/a> (1973)<\/p>\n

Topographic Oceans was such a challenge \u2013 the construction, the rehearsal, then the studio. Jon and I were pushing this project along; the others were saying, \u2018Are you sure? A double album and this is the first track?\u2019 It needed Jon and me to say, \u2018No no, it\u2019s going to work!\u2019 Side One and Four Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil) would be so playable now, like an album in themselves.<\/p>\n

Those two sum up the project \u2013 the beginning and the end \u2013 and I choose the beginning. The Revealing Science Of God is about where you put yourself: if you put yourself where people are saying, \u2018Wait, I\u2019m not sure about this,\u2019 it might actually be a good thing. Then after the record came out the press slagged it, and Rick<\/a> left. But then, everybody loved it\u2026<\/p>\n

The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn) (2003 Remaster) – YouTube
\n\"The<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2015 Prog asked Yes guitarist Steve Howe to name his five favourite songs from his band\u2019s catalogue.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-583920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}