Yes -- "Harmonium"

After the album Relayer and the 1974 tour, each member of the band Yes recorded solo albums: Singer Jon Anderson recorded Olias of Sunhillow, bassist Chris Squire issued Fish Out of Water, guitarist Steve Howe made Beginnings, drummer Alan White recorded Ramshackled, and keyboardist Patrick Moraz issued Story of I. I wanted to create one single album, something that might have been released by the band had they decided not to issue solo albums.

Five solo albums provide a lot of songs to choose from, but which ones are the most likely to have been on a Yes album? Actually, the band gives us the clues because in 1976 Yes went on tour and performed several of the solo songs. These include:

• Anderson: “Ocean Song”
• Howe: “Ram,” “Break Away from It All,” “Beginnings”
• Moraz: “Cachaça (Baião)”
• Squire: “Hold Out Your Hand,” “You By My Side”
• White: “Spring-Song of Innocence,” “One Way Rag”

The studio versions of these tracks total about 39 minutes, which was the standard length of an LP at this time.

The fact that only one of Anderson’s songs was performed I find a little strange, although he sang on “Spring-Song of Innocence” on White’s album. Howe also performed on it.

Howe’s selections for the tour are odd in my opinion. Moraz and White performed together with Howe on two songs from his solo album, but neither one was played on the tour. However, Moraz also played on “Beginnings,” and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford played on “Break Away from It All,” both of which were performed on the tour.

For many, Squire’s solo album sounded the most like a Yes album. This may be because both Moraz and Bruford performed on the entire album.

In determining a tracklist, I looked at how the songs were used on the individual solo albums and tried to spread them around as evenly as I could. The result:

SIDE A

1. Ocean Song – 3:12

2. Hold Out Your Hand – 4:13

3. Ram – 1:53

4. One-Way Rag – 4:07

5. Spring-Song of Innocence – 5:02

SIDE B

1. Beginnings – 7:03

2. You by My Side – 5:00

3. Cachaça (Baião) – 4:07

4. Break Away from It All – 4:19

I think it all works together. I’m still a little uneasy about not having another Anderson song, but I just couldn’t decide which other one to use, and squeezing another song into the tracklist put everything out of balance. I briefly considered making this a double album, but that idea gave me a headache. So in the end, Anderson is not as fully represented as I’d like.

Now, I needed a title and an album cover. I think I spent more time on these two items than actually compiling the tracklist.

None of the titles used for the solo albums seemed right for this. Considering several of Yes’ album titles are just one word (Fragile, Relayer, Tormato, Drama, etc.), I leaned in that direction. The song “The Gates of Delerium” on the band’s previous album Relayer was based on Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” and that got me thinking about how everyone in the band was contributing at least one song. Looking at synonyms for peace I finally chose “Harmony” for the title. It just seemed to encapsulate everything, including the obvious connection to music. But then I decided it didn't sound "high brow" enough for a Yes album title so I changed it to Harmonium.

As far as a cover, Yes was in a transition at this point. By 1976, the band had had six albums (including live and compilation albums) with covers designed by Roger Dean. But after the solo albums, the band’s next two album covers were created by the design group Hipgnosis. So I wasn’t sure what exactly to do at first. Finally, I decided to use the original artwork Dean created for Howe’s solo album, re-crop it, and then add the band logo and album title.