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‘It was an I Will Survive for the 1990s’: how McAlmont & Butler made Yes

‘David only had words for one verse. “Just sing it twice,” I said. “We can worry about that later.” But we never got around to it – and people don’t seem to notice’

There were a bunch of records I loved listening to on a sunny day – Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be With You, The First Picture of You by the Lotus Eaters, You on My Mind by Swing Out Sister, which has Bacharach key changes and strings. We set the drums up in the old stone cellar – Mako didn’t speak English but I directed him with my arms and remember the room shaking as he produced that eruption you hear at the start of the record. Women have told me they left abusive relationships thanks to Yes I remember getting to the climactic point after the second chorus where the song builds and builds and I sing: “I’m better, better, Ye-e-e-e-es!” I was thinking I was done, but then Bernard said: “We need something for the end, a kind of refrain.” I thought: “Smokey Robinson!” And I used my falsetto to repeat: “I feel well enough to tell you what you can do with what you got.” The recording actually uses varispeed to pitch that part a semitone out of my comfort zone, so I was much happier performing the song with a live band on Later With Jools Holland than I was singing along to the backing track on Top of the Pops.

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