Song Lyric of the Day (Styx, on Angels’ ‘Song of Hope’)

“A gathering of angels appeared above my head

They sang to me this song of hope and this is what they said

They said, ‘Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me.’”—“Come Sail Away,” written by Dennis De Young, from the Styx LP The Grand Illusion (1977)

As a high-school freshman, I nodded in agreement as a friend, Dan, hearing “Lady” come on the radio again, trashed its creators, Styx, as a “one-hit wonder.”

Fast-forward two decades later. Another friend asked me to buy her a Styx CD—but not just any Styx CD. It had to have a later song by the band, “Come Sail Away.”

“Good choice,” I thought to myself.

The other night, I saw a PBS ad for a concert special featuring Dennis De Young and the music of Styx. Far from being a “one-hit wonder,” as Dan and I fully expected, Styx has become a band beloved by many baby boomers—in no small part, I’m convinced, because of “Come Sail Away.”

Youth is a time of chasing dreams, of setting forth for a “virgin sea.” It is fraught with peril the way that the newfound freedom promised by adulthood is. That is why, as songwriter Dennis De Young reminisced in an interview for the Web site “Classic Rock Revisited,” “Come Sail Away” represents, despite the losses and disappointments following the journey embarked upon by youth, an anthem of “guarded hope.” Released the summer before my senior year of high school, it sustained me all the way through to graduation--and, in certain ways, maybe well beyond it.

In fact, it is the second time that the lyrics “to carry on” are used that the song shifts irrevocably from piano-based ballad to a guitar-centric explosion of exhilaration. To continue in the face of defeat (“somehow we missed out on the pot of gold”) becomes the ultimate act of courage.

The creators of the short-lived, long-lamented cult TV classic Freaks and Geeks knew what they were doing when they used this song to close out their marvelous pilot. It comes after one of the “geeks” has summoned up the nerve to ask a stunning cheerleader to dance. The song is so meaningful in this moment because in adolescence, even conquering social unease can, for the one afflicted, require “a gathering of angels.”