You By My Side

Zoo Freaks, settle in for a bit of pure progressive rock heart from the one and only Chris Squire. The Zoo Crew is spinning "You By My Side," that gentle five-minute gem tucked on his 1975 solo album Fish Out Of Water. This is the track where the Yes bassist steps away from the thundering Rickenbacker lines and delivers something tender, almost like a late-night conversation set to music. Squire wrote, arranged, and produced the whole album himself, and on this particular song he leaned into a 3/4 waltz feel with lush orchestration that feels like sunlight filtering through trees. He was a huge fan of Crosby, Stills & Nash and deliberately chased Graham Nash’s warm vocal tone here, laying down a melody that sits right in that sweet, melancholic pocket. The track opens with childhood friend Andrew Pryce Jackman on grand piano, then Jimmy Hastings drifts in with some beautifully paced flute before the strings lift everything into those pastoral interludes. Squire’s then-wife Nikki added backing vocals on the album’s opening cut "Hold Out Your Hand," and the whole record was cut between his home studio at New Pipers in Surrey and Morgan Studios in London during the Yes hiatus that followed Relayer.

The story behind the promotional film for "Hold Out Your Hand" and "You By My Side" is pure classic-rock resourcefulness. Squire booked a small contingent of London Symphony Orchestra players who were already headed to another session; he could only afford roughly half an hour of their time at a cost of about £3,000. The mimed performance was shot against a plain white background with Bill Bruford on drums, Patrick Moraz on keys, and Jackman on piano, the orchestra filling in those sweeping parts. Squire later said those were pioneering days and none of them really knew exactly what they were doing, yet the results still stand as one of the strongest Yes-related solo statements of the decade. Jackman, who had played with Squire back in The Syn, handled the orchestration and even conducted the session at Morgan. Squire was so impressed he offered co-writing credits, but Jackman modestly declined. The album reached the UK top 25 and the US top 70, and "Hold Out Your Hand" later got a standing ovation when Yes performed it on the 1976 North American tour. "You By My Side" itself remains a deep cut that shows Squire’s range as a singer and songwriter, not just the guy holding down the bottom end.

Chris Squire’s path into music started long before any of that. Born Christopher Russell Edward Squire on March 4, 1948, in Kingsbury, north London, he grew up the son of a cab driver. At age six he joined the choir at St. Andrew’s church as a treble, trained by choirmaster Barry Rose, who later worked with the St. Paul’s Cathedral choir. Those early years gave him a deep feel for vocal harmony and arrangement that never left him. He also sang in the school choir at Haberdashers’ Aske’s and played harmonica walking home. Music as a career did not click until he was about sixteen and the Beatles arrived. A school friend looked at his tall frame and large hands and told him he ought to play bass. Squire picked up a cheap Futurama, practiced hard, and soon formed early groups like The Selfs. In 1964, on the last day before summer holidays, the headmaster suspended him and a friend for having their hair too long and handed them two shillings and sixpence for haircuts. They took the money and never went back. Squire landed a job selling guitars at Boosey & Hawkes on Regent Street, used the staff discount to buy his first Rickenbacker 4001 in 1965, and kept building bands: The Syn, then Mabel Greer’s Toyshop with Peter Banks.

The real spark came in 1968 at the La Chasse club in Soho. Manager Jack Barrie introduced Squire to a young singer named Jon Anderson who was working the bar. The two discovered they both loved Simon & Garfunkel, The Association, and layered vocal harmony. They wrote "Sweetness" the next day, pulled in Banks, Bill Bruford, and Tony Kaye, and Yes was born. Their first show as Yes was at a youth camp in East Mersea, Essex, on August 4, 1968. Squire remained the only constant member across every Yes studio album from 1969 through 2014, the man whose melodic, trebly bass lines helped define progressive rock. He passed in 2015, but the music keeps rolling. Zoo Freaks who want more of that deep-cut spirit can always drop by THE ZOO for the full freeform ride.

For the official side of things, the Chris Squire Facebook page keeps the stories and photos alive at Chris Squire on Facebook, where fans still share memories and the page marked the album’s anniversary with a call for favorite tracks. Over on the long-running Yes community, Yesfans hosts a dedicated Chris Squire forum section packed with discussions, including plenty on Fish Out Of Water and its lasting impact. The active Facebook group for Yes enthusiasts is YES Fan Club on Facebook, where Squire’s influence and the album’s place in the wider story come up regularly among listeners who have followed the band for decades. Those spots are where the stories keep circulating among the people who still spin the records and dig into the details the way the Zoo Crew does. "You By My Side" is one of those tracks that rewards a closer listen: the piano, the flute, the strings, and that earnest vocal all sitting together like an old friend who never quite left the room.