A cool song about America from 1975

Back just before John Curulewski left Styx and was replaced by possibly the first non-Chicagoan in the band, Tommy Shaw, came Equinox.  That album gave us the songs “Light Up”, which I think should be the theme song of Illinois’ legalization of pot, and the great “Lorelei”.

But the closer of the album is sort of a thinker, called “Suite Madame Blue”.  Dennis DeYoung certainly was no stranger to epic love songs, but this is not one of those.  If you pay attention, you’ll find that Madame Blue is a metaphorical reference to the Statue of Liberty.

The bicentennial was right around the corner, and DeYoung was disturbed at how commercialism seemed to be taking over the whole thing.  There was bicentennial everything, even panties!  So he wrote the song about how he felt that America was becoming less of the inspiration that she once was.

But… the cool thing about this country, and I think Dennis would agree, is that people have always had the right to say when they’re disappointed in something about the country.

The song on the Equinox album was actually a demo that they decided to put on the album as is!  Here’s the song you can listen to on the official Styx channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkkQPxoxJJY