Long before “Open Arms” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” years prior to “Waiting for a Girl Like You” or “I Want to Know What Love Is,” there was Dennis DeYoung’s “Babe” — the initial single from Styx’s career-altering 1979 Cornerstone project. The song became Styx’s first (and, thus far, only) charttopping single, but also one of the last No. 1 hits of the 1970s.
DeYoung’s former band, he tells Hinsdale Magazine, wasn’t the only one that was changed forever. “After ‘Babe’ was a hit, rock bands realized that they could release a straight ballad and still have careers,” DeYoung says. “And then Journey started doing it, and Foreigner started doing it — and it was only because I wrote a song for my wife.”
“Babe,” in fact, had humble beginnings, indeed — as a reel-to-reel gift for DeYoung’s spouse, Suzanne. Not meant for release, it had been recorded with only stalwart Styx bassist Chuck Panozzo and his late drumming brother John. “It was not a Styx song; it was just reel to reel, here you go — happy birthday,” DeYoung admits, outlining the song’s familiar narrative about lovers trying to make a relationship work from afar.
Then a friend of his — someone “who could kind of judge my music very well,” DeYoung says — heard “Babe.” “‘That’s a No. 1,'” DeYoung remembers his friend saying, “and he was a Led Zeppelin fan! I said, ‘Really?’ [And] he said, “Absolutely, that’s No. 1!”
It was, however, former bandmates Tommy Shaw and James “J.Y” Young — leaders, then as now, of the band’s harder-edged, more progressive side — who finally convinced DeYoung to add the song to Styx’s forthcoming studio effort. After Shaw tacked on a guitar solo, of course.
The rest is history — for Styx and, DeYoung insists, many others.
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As if the world needed another reason to hate Styx.
One could just as easily blame “Beth” by KISS.
gosh, no Ego on Dennis DeYoungs part, eh?
He’s not one for being unduly modest is he? Claiming to be the daddy of FM-Friendly AOR?? Sheesh….
One could point even earlier, to the Beatles “Michelle”, as an origin as well…