Breaking Down Roundabout using isolated tracks

Rick Beato has a wonderful video series ("What Makes This Song Great") on YouTube that breaks down classic tracks. The latest episode deals with Roundabout by Yes.

So many amazing elements to this song!



Gotta love Bruford's timbales!

Beato has been producing/composing/engineering for approx 25 years and has taught music on a college level.
He is very good at delivering his ideas in an appealing manner.

 

What Makes This Song Great?

Erm, the riff out of 'Love Machine' by the Miracles, maybe?

 

Pretty amazing stuff. Thanks for posting.

 

It doesn't hurt.

 

"Roundabout" is the older song.

 

Thanks for posting the link to this. I REALLY enjoyed it!

 

By about 4 years!

 

Nice post, thanks

 

That video was great, reminded me that Steve was doing some of the same backwards guitar trickery years before Roundabout.

 

I've seen some of his other videos and he's very good. As many times as we've all heard it, I still think that this is one of the most genius bass lines ever written. It sounds super busy but when you break it down, Squire is only using a handful of notes there for the main riff and his left hand barely moves at all since he's applying open A and D strings. The genius lies in the phrasing and articulation of those notes - the muted notes and the quick spaces in between the notes, etc. Just fantastic and I still can't play it with the same feel that he does. I've watched other youtubers play it and haven't seen anyone emulate the line perfectly.

 

That was great fun, showing just how damn amazing "Roundabout" was, in it's many different layers ..., thanks for posting it!

 

Quote from Squire regarding a slight change of the bass sound on the third verse:

"I overdubbed my part an octave higher on one of Steve's old Gibson hollow body jazz guitars. We just miked it acoustically and mixed it in with the bass. That's what gave the part such a bright sound."

- Bass Player magazine Chris Squire interview November 1994

 

Loved it. And I added Dutch subtitles cuz why not.

 

Beato was one of my guitar teachers when I was in music school. I was happy to see him surface on YouTube and found his videos to be excellent refreshers for what I learned at school.

This WMTSG series has been a good one and this Yes video might be the best of the bunch.

 

In the video, Beato mentions that Roundabout was the 2nd single from Fragile.
Which track was the first single?

 

That was fun! Amazing to hear the parts isolated, it gives me a new appreciation for how much they put into it! Thx for sharing!!!

 

In order to have stolen the Miracles' riff, Yes would have needed access to this car:

 

I think Rick might actually be wrong here. Long Distance Runaround was Roundabout's B-side and got quite a lot of airplay. But I have been searching and cannot find another single besides Roundabout.