Christopher Cross – Sailing

“Sailing” – Single by Christopher Cross from the album Christopher Cross
B-side “Poor Shirley”
Released May 27, 1980
Recorded 1979
Label Warner Bros.
Songwriter Christopher Cross
Producer Michael Omartian
Charted No.1 in US; No.1 in Canada; No..48 in UK; No.21 in Ireland; No.12 in Italy.

Cross wrote this song about his memories sailing every summer with a friend in Texas. It became the paragon of “Yacht Rock,” a term used to define a form of easy listening music favored by the rich. And what defines yacht music better than a song about sailing?

It was released in June 1980 as the second single from his self-titled debut album (1979), which was already certified gold by this time. The song was a success in the United States, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on August 30, 1980, where it stayed for one week. The song also won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Arrangement of the Year, and helped Cross win the Best New Artist award. VH1 named “Sailing” the most “softsational soft rock” song of all time.

The song was recorded in 1979, utilizing the 3M Digital Recording System, making it one of the first digitally recorded songs to chart. In his Grammy acceptance speech, Cross acknowledged “Sailing” as his favorite song on the album and that originally it was not meant to be a single. The song was later identified as an archetype of the style that later became known as yacht rock (at the time, Cross and similar artists referred to the style as the West Coast sound}.