Styx: “Come Sail Away”

The Hook: Wanna get away?

Year Released: 1977

Album: The Grand Illusion

Writer: Dennis DeYoung

Stats: Went to number-eight on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Background: Former singer and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung tells us that he conceived the song following the band’s first-ever performance in Hawaii. Back in Chicago in the dead of winter, DeYoung was thinking that a trip to a tropical paradise sounded like an awfully good way of “escaping from one’s troubles and problems.”

Below you will hear former Styx singer-keyboardist Dennis De Young on what inspired “Come Sail Away.”

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