Chris Squire – Bass

There are a lot of Squire parts that are profoundly difficult to get down on paper (I tried to tackle ‘Tales Of Topographic Oceans’ but it is impossible to capture) but some of these earlier tunes are that little bit less demanding. It wasn’t until I was doing this chart that I learned that the tune, ‘Time And A Word’ was written by Jon Anderson and bassist David Foster whilst they were in the band ‘The Warriors’ together which preceded Yes by some margin. The Squire part is hinting at the legendary Squire bombast but is not as heavy as some of the stuff that he was doing at this time and is mostly playable. There are a couple of 16th note fills but they are diatonic and scalar so not massively challenging if you have done the groundwork. The tune is the title track of the 1970 Yes album that was the last that the band did with Peter Banks, a much under-rated guitarist, before Steve Howe arrived to create the classic Yes line-up that my generation still considers to be the ‘real’ Yes.

Check out the video – they were children!!!