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Roundabout (song)

"Roundabout"
Roundabout45.jpg
Dutch vinyl single cover
Single by Yes
from the album Fragile
B-side "Long Distance Runaround"
Released 4 January 1972 (US)
Format 7"
Recorded 1971
Genre Progressive rock
Length
Label Atlantic
Writer(s)
Producer(s)
Yes singles chronology
"Your Move"
(1971)
"Roundabout"
(1972)
"America"
(1972)
Yes singles chronology
"And You and I"
(1972)
"Roundabout (Live)"
(1972)
"Soon"
(1975)

"Roundabout" is a song by the English rock band Yes from their fourth studio album Fragile, released in November 1971. It was written by singer Jon Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe and produced by the band and Eddy Offord. The song originated when the band were on tour and travelled from Aberdeen to Glasgow, and went through many roundabouts on the way.

The song was released as an edited single in the US in January 1972 with "Long Distance Runaround", another track from Fragile, as the B-side. It peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 10 on the Cash Box Top 100 singles charts. In 1973, Anderson and Howe won a BMI Award for writing the song.

In August 1971, Yes started to prepare material for their fourth album, Fragile. During this time, their organist Tony Kaye left the group and was replaced by Rick Wakeman. The group then moved to Advision Studios to record Fragile with audio engineer Eddy Offord as their co-producer. They decided to record four group songs with five solo tracks written and arranged by each member. "Roundabout" is one of such collaborative tracks.

The song originated when the band were on tour, travelling from Aberdeen to Glasgow. They encountered many roundabouts on the way; Anderson claimed "maybe 40 or so", which inspired Anderson and Howe to write a song about the journey as they sat in the back of the band's transit van, and include the roundabouts and the surrounding mountains into the lyrics. Anderson added: "It was a cloudy day, we couldn't see the top of the mountains. We could only see the clouds because it was sheer straight up ... I remember saying, "Oh, the mountains–look! They're coming out of the sky! So we wrote that down". Within 24 hours, the band had arrived back home in London where Anderson reunited with his then wife Jennifer, which inspired the song's lyric "Twenty-four before my love and I'll be there". A lake they passed as they neared Glasgow became the idea behind the line "In and around the lake".


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