A song about being picked up and taken away by aliens, it gave the band a career boost and eventually took on a life of its own.
Sailing to success in ’77: (l-r) Tommy Shaw, John Panozzo, James Young, Dennis DeYoung, Chuck Panozzo.
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY
MASHED SPUDS
Styx were riding high on the back of the success of Come Sail Away and parent album The Grand Illusion when they arrived in Britain in May 1978 for their first UK gigs, a three-date mini-tour ending at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. The support on that tour was a rising band named Dire Straits.
“I like Mark Knopfler, I like some of the things Dire Straits did, but I’d read what people had to say, and it was: ‘Dire Straits, great. Styx? Fuck off,’” says Dennis DeYoung. “So I went out and watched them, and it was as exciting as a row of potatoes.”
Styx’s timing was lousy. The British press was wrapped up in punk. “I wanted to be loved by the British, because British bands were the reason I did what I did. But they were calling us dinosaurs. Jesus Christ, we’ve only just had success, let us enjoy it a little bit.”