DESCRIPTION:
Dennis Deyoung - Desert Moon Lyrics

"Is this the train to Desert Moon?" was all she said
But I knew I'd heard that stranger's voice before
I turned to look into her eyes, but she moved away
She was standing in the rain
Trying hard to speak my name
They say first love never runs dry

The waiter poured our memories into tiny cups
We stumbled over words we longed to hear
We talked about the dreams we'd lost, or given up
When a whistle cut the night
And shook silence from our lives
As the last train rolled towards the dune

Those summer nights when we were young
We bragged of things we'd never done
We were dreamers, only dreamers
And in our haste to grow too soon
We left our innocence on Desert Moon
We were dreamers, only dreamers
On Desert Moon, on Desert Moon
On Desert Moon, Desert Moon

I still can hear the whisper of the summer night
It echoes in the corners of my heart
The night we stood and waited for the desert train
All the words we meant to say
All the chances swept away
Still remain on the road to the dune

Those summer nights when we were young
We bragged of things we'd never done
We were dreamers, only dreamers
Moments pass, and time moves on
But dreams remain for just as long
As there's dreamers, all the dreamers
On Desert Moon, on Desert Moon
On Desert Moon, Desert Moon

Dennis DeYoung - Biography
Dennis DeYoung (born February 18, 1947, Chicago, Illinois) is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer best known for being a founding member of the rock band Styx, a tenure which lasted from 1970 to 1999.

Early life

Growing up in the Roseland neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, DeYoung's career as a vocalist started in 1963 at the age of 16 when he teamed up with his 15 year old neighbors, Chuck and John Panozzo, in a three-piece combo. The trio later added guitarist James Young and John Curulewski to form the band Tradewinds in the late 1960s. The band renamed itself TW4 in 1968 before becoming Styx in 1970.

On January 18, 1970, DeYoung married his longtime sweetheart, Suzanne Feusi, to whom he is still married. The couple have two children, Carrie Ann and Matthew. Unlike many musical families, the growing family toured together throughout DeYoung's career in order to provide stability for the couple's young children.

Before the band met with success, DeYoung spent time as an elementary school teacher in the southern suburbs of Chicago, where he taught music at Springfield School in Midlothian, Illinois. During this period, the band played a number of small venues and school auditoriums refining their craft before the song "Lady" propelled them to national then international stardom.

Tenure with Styx

Within Styx, DeYoung acted as lead vocalist, keyboardist, accordion player, producer, writer and creative force behind many of the band's hit songs. A self-taught keyboardist, DeYoung quickly became one of the most notable players of that instrument in rock. Featured on the cover of the January 1981 issue of Contemporary Keyboard magazine (a story that was reprinted in Contemporary Keyboard's book on the greatest rock keyboardists), DeYoung described many of his steps along the way through his keyboard-playing career: He'd never played an acoustic piano until the recording session for 1972s "Lady"; he recorded the track for 1979s "Babe" in a friend's basement on a Rhodes electric piano he'd never touched before; the odd feeling of switching back to playing accordion for the song "Boat On The River" and discovering how small the keys felt to his fingers after years of playing electric organs and pianos.

As a keyboardist in Styx, DeYoung was best remembered for his prominent lead synthesizer solos performed on the Oberheim synthesizer that dominated the mix with a unique tone, a key element of the Styx sound. DeYoung pioneered the use of synthesizers in rock and roll. Influenced by the recent release of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's first album, DeYoung — a novice synthesizer player at the time — used a modular Moog to record the keyboard tracks for the first Styx album. This album featured a rock version of "Fanfare for the Common Man", more than 5 years before ELP came up with a similar idea of recording this classical composition as a rock band featuring the synthesizer that would later become one of ELP's best known recordings.

DeYoung's songs often had a grandiose style to them in the tradition of 1970s theatrical rock, which heavily influenced the group's direction in the late 1970s, culminating in the concept albums Paradise Theatre (1981) and Kilroy Was Here (1983). The dissent of some members in the band during Kilroy brought tensions between the group's members over the future direction of the band, leading to guitarist Tommy Shaw's departure in 1984.

Solo career

With Styx in limbo following Shaw's 1984 departure, DeYoung began a solo