Styx – Babe

A Birthday Gift To His Wife That Nearly Tore The Band Apart

Styx released “Babe” in September 1979 as the lead single from their ninth studio album Cornerstone. The power ballad reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 8, 1979, where it stayed for two weeks—making it the penultimate number-one single of the 1970s. It peaked at number six in the UK, becoming their only top ten hit there, and sold over a million copies in the US alone. What started as keyboardist Dennis DeYoung’s quick birthday present for his wife Suzanne became Styx’s only chart-topper and nearly destroyed the band in the process.

The single dominated American radio through late 1979 and into 1980, helping Cornerstone peak at number two on the Billboard 200. It reached number 26 in Canada and became a top ten hit across Europe. The album earned triple-platinum certification and spawned three more singles—“Why Me” hit number 26, while “Borrowed Time” stalled at number 64. Tommy Shaw’s “Boat on the River” failed to chart in the US but became Styx’s biggest European hit ever, topping charts in Switzerland and reaching the top five across Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. At the 22nd Grammy Awards, Styx earned a nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, and by 1980, Gallup named them the most popular rock band in America.

DeYoung never intended the song for Styx. He wrote it quickly and called up bassist Chuck Panozzo and his drummer brother John to record a demo—just him singing and playing while the rhythm section laid down the foundation. Guitarists Tommy Shaw and James Young were on vacation. DeYoung planned to give the finished reel-to-reel tape to Suzanne for her birthday, a private gesture celebrating their 15 years of marriage. But A&M Records executives heard the demo and insisted it go on Cornerstone. Shaw later said the track was “unlike anything I had ever anticipated doing in Styx”—too AM radio, too soft rock. He believed it marked “the slow division of the two camps (the rock vs. the pop) within Styx.” According to DeYoung, there were attempts to re-record it with the full band, but nothing matched the intimacy of the birthday demo. The album version is essentially that original recording with Shaw overdubbing a guitar solo during the instrumental bridge.

The album was recorded at Pumpkin Studios in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and self-produced by the band. DeYoung used a Fender Rhodes electric piano throughout most of Cornerstone—an instrument he’d never touched before picking it up at Pumpkin Studios because the studio’s grand piano was out of tune. His unfamiliarity with the Rhodes gave the song its signature warm, intimate sound. Real horns and strings were used on several tracks, marking a shift away from the progressive rock that had defined their first eight albums. The band’s longtime live engineer Gary Loizzo, who co-owned Pumpkin Studios, engineered the album with Rob Kingsland. Both men earned Grammy nominations for Best Engineered Recording.

Cornerstone arrived at the height of Styx’s commercial power—their third consecutive multi-platinum album following 1977’s The Grand Illusion and 1978’s Pieces of Eight. But the success of “Babe” emboldened DeYoung to push for another ballad, “First Time,” as the second single. Shaw and Young recoiled. Radio stations were already playing it and generating massive response, but Shaw threatened to quit if the label released two ballads in a row. “You can’t do that,” Shaw recalled saying. “This can’t be who we become.” The argument got so heated that DeYoung was briefly fired from the band—though he was invited back before the press caught wind. A&M pulled “First Time” and released “Why Me” instead. The rift never fully healed, ultimately contributing to the band’s dissolution after their 1983 album Kilroy Was Here.

The song has been covered by Boyz II Men, who took it to number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1995. Dutch boy band Caught in the Act released a version in 1997 that reached moderate success in Europe. The track appeared in the 1999 Adam Sandler film Big Daddy, where Sandler’s character is revealed as a huge Styx fan. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked it among the top songs of the 1970s, and it remains a wedding reception staple. DeYoung has said he’s proud the song has connected with millions of couples over the decades.

For a song born as a private love letter, “Babe” achieved something remarkable—it became the sound of American rock pivoting from the 1970s to the 1980s, sitting at number one as the decade turned. But it also exposed the fault lines in Styx that would eventually split the band apart. DeYoung told Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits that “being on the road for six years puts a strain on a relationship.” He was right—but he could have just as easily been talking about the band. The song that saved DeYoung’s marriage became the one that fractured Styx forever.