Happy Anniversary: Yes, “Sweetness”

46 years ago today, Yes unleashed their very first single onto an unsuspecting public, offering up a song full of sweetness – not least of all because that’s what it was called – but giving little clue as to the prog-rock direction in which their music would soon be heading.
Yes came into existence as a result of a band with the only-in-1967 name of Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, which featured singer/guitarist Clive Bayley, drummer Bob Hagger, guitarist Peter Banks, and bassist Chris Squire. Several of those names will look familiar to you, of course, but probably not all of them. The moment in which rock history was made came when Jack Barrie, the owner of a club called La Chasse, introduced Squire to one of his employees, John Anderson, and despite the fact that he hadn’t yet dropped the “h” from his first name, it would be an understatement to say that the two gents got along swimmingly from the get-go, given that they actually wrote Yes’s first single the very first time they hung out together. Needless to say, Anderson soon found himself in the band. .
At some unspecified point, Banks left the Toyshop to join another band – Neat Change – but when those blokes opted to discontinue the use of his services, Squire called him back into the lineup to replace Bayley, while Hagger was replaced behind the drum kit by a fellow by the name of Bill Bruford. All this went down in June 1968, as did the decision to add a keyboardist to the lineup (Tony Kaye), and by August 4 the band had a new name – Yes! – and was playing their first gig under the decidedly shorter moniker. .
“Sweetness” – which, lest we neglect to mention it, was also co-written by the aforementioned Mr. Bayley – was released in 1969, with a cover of “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story as its B-side, which is not as weird as you might think: Yes’s self-titled debut also found them covering The Byrds’ “I See You” and The Beatles’ “Every Little Thing.” It wouldn’t be long before the band had more than enough original material to fill every last groove of their albums…and, boy, is that an understatement: arguably the most amazing thing about Yes is that it features a track listing where the longest song comes in at under seven minutes. Strange but true…