Styx Degrees of Separation

Come Sail Away- Styx

Styx, the band, was forming in January 1971. They quickly became known for their bombastic rocker attitude. The band is composed of four musicians: Chuck and John Panozzo (bass & drums), and James Young and Tommy Shaw (vocals & keyboard). They have been one of the most famous American Rock Bands. Come Sail Away was ranked #8 in 1977.

In this song, James Young sings about the determination that one has to leave behind his old, exhausted life and become free to discover his new life and all of its possibilities and discusses the struggles along the way. It connects to the American Dream and the immigrants' journey:

Set an open course for the virgin sea,
'Cause I've got to be free,
Free to face the life that's ahead of me

This stanza represents the hope that was put into everyone's mind about America. Everyone was so ecstatic about the new opportunities that they would have in America and they needed to break free from their old lives. The "virgin sea" can represent the idea of America: pure, vast, and fresh.

 

Reflections in the waves spark my memory,
Some happy, some sad,
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had
We lived happily forever, so the story goes,
But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold

This shows how the immigrants had hope steaming all the way back to when they were children. They had dreams where they "lived happily forever." In the next line, it shows how real life has ended up differently than his dreams because he "somehow missed out on the pot of gold." This symbolizes the confusion that people had upon arriving in America and receiving terrible treatment. They thought that they would have everything in the world if they made it to America and once they did they experienced extreme dissatisfaction, missing out on the expected pot of gold.

A gathering of angels appeared above my head,
They sang to me this song of hope and this is what they said,They said come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me lads

 

The "angels" in this stanza represent the encouraging words that the immigrants heard before their journey to America. We later see that these "angels" were deceptive and tricked them.

 

I thought that they were angels, but to my surprise,

We climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies

Since angels are thought of as being ultimate saviors, this shows how the hopeful immigrants thought they would be forever content and safe in a heaven when they came to America. It seems like in this song, these "angels" are really aliens. The aliens took the people away from their old lives, but while they were expecting something perfect, they arrived in "the skies." 

Come Sail Away by Styx connects to Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare through the constantly fed hope that the American Dream was attainable.

In Six Degrees of Separation, all Paul wants is "everlasting friendship" from the people he's been betraying (Guare 99). This is controversial because in the scence where Paul and Trent are together, Trent only wants to be with Paul but Paul is more interested in the address book full of rich people's names. It is evident that Paul is looking for everlasting friendship because Trent was basically offering it to him and he completely shut him down.

When Paul meets Trent, an upper-class ivy-league student, Trent promises to make him "the most eagerly sought-after young man in the East" (79). This quote is evidence for the hope and confidence that Paul has in order to obtain his desires. Trent also teaches him that he'll be able to fit into the upper class is he talks a certain way. This gave additional hope to Paul, showing him that it was "easy" to get in with the upper class. But it was only easy for those already in the upper class to stay in the upper class. Throughout the play, Paul remains in the upper class for nights at a time, but never more. His lies and deceit are then found out and the members of the Upper East Side lash out on him and get him arrested. This is the ultimate reality check for Paul because he came in with Trent's ideas in his head that "rich people do something nice for you, you give them a pot of jam" (78). Trent made it seem so possible to receive everlasting friendship from the Upper East Side. Paul believed from there on out that rich people would do nice things for him and all he had to do was bring them a pot of jam. We see later, that not even parent-children relationships are considered "everlasting friendship." Flanders and Ouisa neglect their children and we see that most obvious and clear everlasting friendship is not even present in the Upper-East Side.

In both this song and this play, the theme of fantasy versus reality is present.