Babe

 

Babe
Written by Dennis DeYoung
Lead Vocals by Dennis DeYoung

Watch/Listen on YouTube

Babe, I'm leaving, I must be on my way
The time is drawing near
My train is going, I see it in your eyes
The love, the need, your tears
But I'll be lonely without you
And I'll need your love to see me through
Please believe me, my heart is in your hands
And I'll be missing you.

You know it's you Babe
Whenever I get weary and I've had enough
Feel like giving up
You know it's you Babe
Giving me the courage and the strength I need
Please believe that it's true
Babe, I love you.

You know it's you Babe
Whenever I get weary and I've had enough
Feel like giving up
You know it's you Babe
Giving me the courage and the strength I need
Please believe that it's true
Babe, I love you.

Babe, I'm leaving, I'll say it once again
Somehow try to smile
I know the feeling we're trying to forget
If only for a while
But I'll be lonely without you
And I'll need your love to see me through
Please believe me, my heart is in your hands
And I'll be missing you
Babe, I love you.

Interpretation

Dennis wrote this song for his wife, Suzanne. It was not intended to be a Styx song at the time, but it eventually became their first #1 single. The song is about how difficult it is to be on the road, away from his wife, who he loves dearly.

Here it is in Dennis' own words, from a 1980 interview in Songwriter magazine:

Songwriter
How did you come to write Babe?

DeYoung
It was getting close to my wife's birthday, around the time for the "Pieces of Eight" tour. I had been going on the road and leaving my wife and our first child for six years. In the beginning it had seemed justifiable, because I had that tremendous ambition. But when I'd become successful, that ambition waned a little bit; I didn't have that same tunnel vision, where I could only see one thing. I began to see how much everything else in my life matters.

So, to make a long story longer, l wanted to tell my wife how much I really needed her and missed her when I had to travel. So I wrote Babe for her as a birthday present. It was a song really about separation. I call her "babe." As I found out later, almost every man calls his girl or wife "babe," which I think is part of the tune's universal appeal. I didn't know that when I did the song.

Actually I questioned whether or not I should use that word because I knew about the perfume by that name, and the fact that there was a certain amount of commerciality attached to the word that I did not like. But I said, "Well the truth is that is the way I refer to her as. Since that's the bottom line, I'm going to use 'babe'!" So I wrote the words and I went in to do a demo because I wanted to give her the tape. It was just drums/bass/ keyboard, and I sang all of the parts. I gave it to her on her birthday.

Songwriter
Did you intend for Babe to become a Styx record?

DeYoung
I never really thought too much about it, except that I really liked the way the studio sounded. I thought, "This demo sounds better than the goddamned albums we have been making for the past couple of years." So what it did was to get me stirred up to change studios and engineers.

So, I would play Babe for people that I really respected to get their opinion on the studio sound. "Have you ever heard a sound like this?" The overwhelming response was no. But in addition, they also said that is some song. I played it for the guys in the band some five months later and we decided to go to this studio and do the album. Babe ended up on "Cornerstone" and became the first single. Aside from that, exactly one year after I gave my wife the song, Babe became No. 1 in the United States.