Come Sail Away

"Come Sail Away" is a song by American rock group Styx, written and sung by singer and songwriter Dennis DeYoung and featured on the band's seventh album The Grand Illusion (1977).

Upon its release as the lead single from the album, "Come Sail Away" peaked at #8 in January 1978 on the Billboard Hot 100, and helped The Grand Illusion achieve multi-platinum sales in 1978.

DeYoung revealed on In the Studio with Redbeard (which devoted an entire episode to the making of The Grand Illusion), that he was depressed when he wrote the track after Styx's first two A&M offerings, Equinox and Crystal Ball, sold fewer units than expected after the success of the single "Lady".

Musically, "Come Sail Away" combines a plaintive, ballad-like opening section (including piano and synthesizer interludes) with a bombastic, guitar-heavy second half.

Cash Box said that "a solitary voice introduces the melody to light piano accompaniment" and that then "the pure fury of the drum, guitar and vocal explosion that follows will pleasantly startle expectations.

"[7] Classic Rock critic Malcolm Dome rated "Come Sail Away" as Styx's 7th greatest song, calling it "one of the all time great power ballads.

The song scored the end of the pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks, in which Sam Weir summons the courage to ask a popular girl to slow dance.

A version of the song performed by Aimee Mann is used in the TV show Community in the Season 5 episode "Geothermal Escapism" for the nautical departure of Donald Glover's Troy Barnes.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes released a cover on their album Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah, which was featured in commercials for season 3 of the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch in 2005.