“It’s melody,” says Jon Anderson. “It’s melody that joins everything.”

Yes’s founder and most notable frontman has always prized melody, even throughout that band’s most extreme experiments with the rock and pop music formula.

It was an obsession that begun with Elvis and The Beatles and took him to far-flung places around the world.

Melodically, we’re all connected. That’s why we love music so much. It’s part of our psyche

“If you listen to the melodies of The Beatles, it’s very, very celtic,” explains Anderson. “The celtic energy of their melodies made people all over the world love them - and if you listen to celtic music, you get the same melodies in China, you get the same melodies in Greece. It’s as if melodically, we’re all connected. That’s why we love music so much. It’s part of our psyche.”

Here Anderson picks his 10 life-changing records and simultaneously explains his metamorphosis from pop-obsessed teenager into one of the leading lights of progressive music.

Jon Anderson and Jean Luc Ponty’s new album with The Anderson Ponty Band, Better Late Than Never, is released on 25 September.