Going for the One

Going for the One is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 15 July 1977 by Atlantic Records. After taking a break in activity in 1975 for each member to release a solo album, and their 1976 tour of the United States and Canada, the band relocated to Montreux, Switzerland to record their next studio album. During rehearsals, keyboardist Patrick Moraz left the group, which marked the return of Rick Wakeman who had left to pursue a solo career after differences surrounding Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973). In a departure from their previous albums, Going for the One, with the exception of the fifteen-minute "Awaken", features shorter and more direct songs without an overarching concept, and saw Yes record with new engineering personnel and cover artists.

Going for the One received a mostly positive response from music critics who welcomed the band's return to more accessible music. It was a commercial success, reaching No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks and No. 8 on the US Billboard 200. "Wonderous Stories" and "Going for the One" were released as singles; the former went to No. 7 in the UK and remains the band's highest-charting single in the country. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) within a month for selling 500,000 copies. Yes supported the album with a six-month tour of the US, Canada and Europe. A remastered edition was released in 2003 containing previously unreleased tracks from the album's recording sessions.

In August 1975, Yes wrapped their 1974–1975 tour of the US, Canada and the UK in support of their seventh studio album, Relayer (1974). The line-up during this time was lead vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, and keyboardist Patrick Moraz. For their next move, the group decided to take an extended break so each member could record and release a solo album. They regrouped for their Solo Albums Tour from May to August, which saw Yes perform some of their highest attended concerts. By October 1976, the band had become tax exiles and relocated to Montreux, Switzerland, to record a new studio album at Mountain Studios, their first studio album recorded overseas. They arrived at the studio when Emerson, Lake & Palmer were supposed to have finished Works (1977) but they were running overtime, leaving the group to work at a rehearsal space nearby for several weeks. A substantial amount of writing and arranging of their new material was done during this time.

In the first two months of writing and recording, Moraz was fired from the band, which he did not expect. Anderson thought he "just wasn't playing like he was involved", and that his sound was not "too good, and that affected his vibe ... it was obvious that he just wasn't getting off on what we were doing." Several months after his exit, Moraz said he had to leave because of "the enormous psychological pressures at the time within the group ... I felt there were a few things going on that I didn't know ... Unfortunately some people did not play the game fair, although the final decision was taken by all members." The decision was made after Rick Wakeman, who had left Yes in 1974 over differences surrounding their ambitious double album Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) and whom Moraz replaced, was invited to play on Going for the One as a session musician by Yes manager Brian Lane and business partner Alex Scott. Wakeman had pursued a successful solo career, but by mid-1976 he faced financial problems after his tour earlier in the year had met its minimal targets. He became interested in playing with Yes again after he had heard a tape of early versions of two of their new songs, "Going for the One" and "Wonderous Stories". Upon his arrival in Switzerland, Wakeman was surprised by how much the band had changed. "We began relating to each other for the first time. I think we had all grown up and became much more mature. Maybe I had to grow up more than them."

At a subsequent party held by Claude Nobs, Lane and Squire convinced Wakeman to become a full-time member as the group would have difficulty in finding a suitable replacement to play Wakeman's parts on their upcoming tour, but did not tell him that they had already informed the press of his return. Wakeman found out when he saw himself on the front cover of Melody Maker, which had printed the news on 4 December 1976.

The album was recorded from October 1976 to April 1977. In a departure from their previous four studio albums, Yes recorded Going for the One with new engineering personnel. Since 1970, they had worked with Eddy Offord who also mixed their sound in concert. After the Relayer tour, Offord thought the band's style had become "a bit stale", and thought a split was needed to work with other bands. Yes employed recording engineer John Timperley who was assisted by David Richards. In a first for the band, the album was solely produced by themselves. It is also the first engineering job for Yes' future sound mixer Nigel Luby, who "did little more than watch and acquaint myself with the equipment." Squire recalled numerous heated arguments over the use of echo on the album, as the group were divided over its use.

The album marked a shift in the band's musical style. Having based Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer around extended or conceptual tracks, Yes decided to scale things back and record shorter and more accessible songs that critic and band biographer Chris Welch described as "user friendly". In one instance, Howe recalled the band had started to arrange a five-minute introduction to a song before they scrapped the idea, as the group realised "there are more ways of getting into songs [...] it was time to go back". Howe said that some songs originated from ideas "from other eras" of the band's history, specifically "Turn of the Century" and parts of "Awaken"; Squire said that others were almost completely improvised in the studio, such as the long keyboard section to "Awaken" and various closing keyboard and guitar solos on other songs. Anderson spoke about the group's direction at the time: "The album is a kind of celebration [...] Over the last two or three years we've been experimenting a lot and we're happy to have been given that chance. [...] We've come back to a happier medium. [...] If we wanted another 'Tales' concept we would have gone in that direction, but we needed to relax for a while—a little more laughing and jive."

In addition to recording at Mountain Studios, "Parallels" and "Awaken" features the church organ at St. Martin's in the town of Vevey (4 miles away from Montreux). The band considered using a mobile studio to record on location, but Timperley persuaded them to rent a telephone line due to their high fidelity and the ability to feed the line directly into the studio. "Parallels" was recorded with Wakeman in the church and the rest of the band in the studio; White counted the band in and they played the song through. On "Awaken", the organ is an overdub. Wakeman described the experience as "absolute magic". Wakeman changed his sound on the album with the use of a Polymoog, a polyphonic analogue synthesiser, which supplemented his traditional use of the Mellotron, Hammond organ, the RMI Electra Piano, and Minimoog synthesiser.