“It’s so powerful”: the song that invented prog bass playing, according to Geddy Lee
The rise and rise of Canadian hard rock trio Rush to eventual global megastardom is one of popular music’s greatest success stories. Formed as teens in 1968 but reaching their commercial peak across the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rush audaciously soldiered through punk, flexing their progressive chops, avoiding their peers’ demise and finding themselves strangely attached to MTV new wave with their synth-heavy pop complexity. They weren’t just unique but forged their own upside-down trajectory on their terms to acclaim and boast one of rock’s most dedicated fan bases.
Despite their creative flexibility, the band was burnished by UK prog and remained a foundational influence right up until 2012’s Clockwork Angels, their final album before drummer and principal songwriter Neil Peart’s death in 2020. Among a myriad of arena big names during prog’s peak all offering a spectrum of quality and degree of theatrical bombast—across Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer—all prog roads ultimately lead to the one archetype, the eternal textbook ensemble that defined the movement while also spelling its end.
“When Yes came out, and particularly the song I chose here ‘No Opportunity…’, when you listen to that song, you listen to the job the bass is doing,” Rush bassist and frontman Geddy Lee told Amazon Music in 2019. “It’s so powerful, it adds so much power to the song. He sort of invented a different way of playing bass for progressive rock music.”
Opening 1970s sophomore LP Time and a Word, ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’ captures a moment in Yes’ transition away from psychedelic anchorage toward fantastical wizadry that would await on their classic run of albums. Before guitarist Steve Howe and Moog noodler Rick Wakeman had joined, Yes were steadily aiming for hectic arrangements and dense collages of musical haphazardity while still orbiting some of the classic rock stylings of the day.
Opting to cover Richie Havens’ 1968 folk pop number, Yes presented a somewhat atypical slice of the band’s oeuvre, yet was possessed by Chris Squire’s distinctly aggressive bass playing. Draped in the Royal College of Music’s roaring brass section—a flourish that triggered such creative disagreements that founding guitarist Peter Banks was dismissed before the album’s release—Squire’s effortlessly melodic and intricate playing maintains ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’s’ propulsive drama, and smatters all over Rush’s future work.
Standing as one of Yes’ steadfast figures, Squire wielded his animated Rickenbacker from their countercultural foundations and stadium-filling peak as well as the late-1970s commercial plummet and 90125‘s MTV rebirth through to 2014’s Heaven & Earth before his death the following year. While popular memory thinks of Yes’ conceptual narratives and opulent stage shows, for many, their secret weapon will always be Squire’s inventive bass style.
“The complexity of his melodies is astounding,” Lee further elaborated, reflecting on how seismically influential Squire’s contributions to prog were. Later, when inducting Yes into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, Lee had the honour of filling Squire’s bass spot for their performance that evening, concluding, “He was just a pioneer, really. A giant in terms of me as a young bass player.”
