Close To The Edge (Yes Album) - History and Content

History and Content

According to co-composer Jon Anderson, the title track is inspired by Hermann Hesse's book Siddhartha. The song tracks the awakening of Hesse's character "close to the edge" of a river (and, symbolically, of the serial lifetimes of his soul), where he experiences a spiritual awakening. Bruford says in his autobiography that he came up with the title to describe the state of the band itself, as he had with its predecessor Fragile. He left the line-up after completion of the recording in order to play with King Crimson, which led to Yes finding ex-Plastic Ono Band member Alan White to replace him before starting a new U.S. tour.

The spiritual influences introduced by Jon Anderson, which later formed the basis of Tales from Topographic Oceans, are already evident in the music and lyrics of all three tracks on Close to the Edge. Renewal and repetition are other main themes; the title track starts and finishes with the same sound effects of running water and birds, and in "Siberian Khatru" there is the repetition of two-syllable words and phrases. This came up many times later in songs like "The Revealing Science of God", "Going for the One", "To Be Over", and "Rhythm of Love".

This album set a trend for Yes of structuring an album around a single epic song. Here the centerpiece is the song "Close to the Edge". Later Yes albums that follow this pattern are Relayer (which features "The Gates of Delirium"), Going for the One (which features "Awaken"), Drama (which features "Machine Messiah"), Talk (which features "Endless Dream") and Fly from Here, from the album of the same name.

The cover art was by Roger Dean. Some of the photography for the album sleeve was by bass player Chris Squire's former bandmate in the Selfs and The Syn, Martyn Adelman.