- Creator Backlash: Rick Wakeman has long been open about his discontent with the album, citing how the impulse to fill out four sides of vinyl resulted in a great deal of what he considered Album Filler. Rick later stated that there was about an hour of really good music on it, and that it would've been better suited for the CD era given that there was too much usable music for one LP and too little for two.
- Creator's Apathy: Rick Wakeman grew increasingly tired of the album as production went on, spending most of his hours in the studio drinking, playing darts, and hanging out with Black Sabbath, playing on "Sabbra Cadabra". Consequently, Wakeman refused monetary payment for his contributions to Sabbath's album, opting to be paid in beer instead.
- What Could Have Been: An early idea for the album was to feature interchangeable segments that the band could've swapped between on-stage depending on how audiences reacted. The concept quickly fell through, however, when the members of Yes realized that there was no viable way of translating that to a studio album.
- Working Title: The album was originally planned to be released as Tales from Tobographic Oceans (note the "b"), which Jon Anderson claimed was a reference to a theory by English astronomer Fred Hoyle. After Nesuhi Ertegun pointed out how the nonsense word "tobographic" sounded oddly close to "topographic," Anderson amended the title accordingly.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Much of the album's material came about through improvisation.
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