biographer Dan Hedges compared the track to the style of fusion group Return to Forever. "To Be Over" originated when Anderson spent an afternoon at Howe's house in London. As the two discussed what music to prepare for the album, Anderson told Howe of his fondness for a melody Howe had written and had sung to Anderson before. Anderson also had the initial lyric: "We'll go sailing down the stream tomorrow, floating down the universal stream, to be over". Howe gained inspiration for the track from a boat ride on The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park in London. From the beginning, he thought the song was "really special" and Anderson agreed to develop it further. Howe had come up with the music for this particular section in the late 1960s and took a riff from a track by his earlier group, Tomorrow. Anderson described "To Be Over" as "Strong in content, but mellow in overall attitude ... It's about how you should look after yourself when things go wrong." When the song's lyric was being finalised, Howe suggested having the line "She won't know what it means to me" follow "We go sailing down the calming streams", but Anderson changed it to "To be over, we will see", a change that Howe thought was "creatively disguised" to make a broader lyrical statement. Moraz felt constricted to perform an improvised keyboard solo for the song, so he wrote down a counterpoint solo "exactly like a classical fugue" to blend his keyboards with the guitar and bass. He had written an initial version on paper in an evening, yet the band expressed their wish to change the key of the song for the section, causing Moraz to spend several hours rewriting it overnight. Artwork The album's sleeve was designed and illustrated by English artist Roger Dean, who had designed artwork for the band since 1971, including their logo. In his 1975 book Views, Dean picked the cover as his favourite for Yes, and the recording he enjoyed the most. He revealed his intention of depicting "a giant 'gothic' cave" for the sleeve, "a sort of fortified city for military monks". The painting originated from a watercolour sketch Dean had done while studying in college. Speaking about the cover in 2004, he said: "I was playing with the ideas of the ultimate castle, the ultimate wall of a fortified city. That was more