A staple of 70s and 80s airwaves and a huge part of the Gen X soundtrack!

If you grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s then Styx was most definitely part of the soundtrack for your life. My love of Styx will always and forever be tied to a group of older kids who were in a local band called Acheron. They played at school dances, CYO dances, and some grad parties. I had a wicked crush on the keyboardist and singer when I was in sixth grade. One of the songs in their repertoire was Lorelei. IMO, this is their best song. When I hear it it just makes me so very happy. Other standout Styx songs IMO are Lady, which is such a pretty song. And of course Come Sail Away. Come Sail Away also reminds me of sixth grade for a few reasons. One because it was played at the end of the school year dance in the high school cafeteria. All the cool couples slow danced to it. I soooooo wanted someone to want to slow dance with me….ha ha! The funny part was when the tempo changed the slow dancers kind of didn’t know what to do and awkwardness ensued. Keep dancing? Start dancing faster? Break apart? The other reason this is imprinted on my brain is because I got the album The Grand Illusion from my Columbia House Record and Tape Club and just about wore that record out. I listened to it non-stop. It came with a poster of the band that I hung up on my wall and must have stared at for hours at a time. In eighth grade I got the album Pieces of Eight with the bangers Blue Collar Man and Renegade! Oh, yeah!

But what I’m really here to talk about is a song that reminds me of the end of my freshman year of high school, forty five years ago, and that is the perfect song The Best of Times. After about ninth grade, I completely lost interest in Styx for some reason. Mr. Roboto might have done it. But from about 1977 to 1980, I loved them. Especially Tommy Shaw cuz of that long blond hair!

The Best of Times was the first single from the band’s 10th album Paradise Theater. It was released in January 1981and pretty quickly climbed the charts. Dennis DeYoung wrote the song during the presidential election of 1980. It really isn’t about the best of times, it’s about fearing the worst of times, but being able to survive if you have someone to love. Of course none of this was in the heads of most fifteen year olds in 1980. We just knew that we loved to sing that soaring chorus, and we thought we were celebrating the best of times, being young, foolish, eager and mostly free to do as we pleased. Which meant having a huge bonfire/outdoor sleepover at my friend’s house on the night of the last day of school.

We’d burn our notebooks and drink Genesee Cream Ale purchased from 3D grocery, along with some cigarettes. We’d be roaming the streets of my little town like a band of gypsies or hoodlums until the break of dawn and then head back to the party for maybe two hours of sleep in our dew soaked sleeping bags. You know what, I think those really were the best of times.

Find an oldies station or some vinyl and listen to The Best of Times by Styx to take you back forty five years. It’s THE perfect song!