“Lady” by Styx

"Lady" was Dennis DeYoung's love song to his wife, the first he ever wrote for her, and Styx cut this power ballad for Styx II in 1973 with John Ryan producing and Bill Traut as executive producer. DeYoung sings it, and the record turns on a happy accident: he wrote it on an electric piano, found an acoustic one waiting at the studio, had never played one before, and loved how it sounded enough to switch for the take.

At first it was a hometown hit in Chicago that went nowhere nationally. Then Styx jumped from Wooden Nickel to A&M in 1974, radio across the country finally caught on, and in March 1975 it climbed to number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. A contract fight between the labels later forced a re-recording for the 1995 Greatest Hits.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.