Career boosts can come from the most unexpected places, as Styx vocalist and keyboardist Lawrence Gowan found out in real-time after a raunchy Comedy Central cartoon provided them with a new, younger audience decades after their last major hit. Styx dominated the airwaves in the late 1970s with tracks like “Come Sail Away” and “Renegade,” but their successes became fewer and further between in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Much to the band’s surprise, they had a television show to thank for their resurgence of popularity in the Y2K era.
Styx Says This Cartoon Contributed Nearly All Of Its Younger Fan Base
In April 1998, South Park released the second episode of the cartoon’s second season. Titled “Cartman’s Mom Is Still a Dirty S***,” Eric Cartman admits, “I can’t stand to leave things unfinished. It’s like when you hear the first part of that song “Come Sail Away” by Styx. If I hear the first part, I have to finish it.” Naturally, the musical reference evolves into a full-blown rendition of Styx’s 1977 hit single. In a March 2025 interview with Boomerocity, Styx vocalist and keyboardist Lawrence Gowan said South Park’s rendition of their decades-old hit introduced their music to a whole new, younger audience.
“I’m happy to admit that I’d say it’s one percent our effort and 99% South Park’s influence,” Gowan said of their younger fanbase. He compared the show to Family Guy, another raunchy cartoon that regularly intersperses musical references, jokes, and numbers into its episodes. “The Cartman version [of “Come Sail Away”] to me, to my mind, is the definitive version. And then I’d put the original recording of Styx, and then I’d put my version maybe third.” Of course, if anyone were to know which version was best, it would be Gowan, who, in addition to joining Styx in 1999, is also an avid South Park and Family Guy fan.
“Every night after the show, that’s one of the things I go to when I’m on the tour bus. It’s one or the other,” he said. “There’s always great musical references between those two cartoons.”
The Song Finally Found What It Was Looking For In A Way
Dennis DeYoung, Styx’s original keyboardist and vocalist, who Lawrence Gowan replaced in the late 1990s, wrote the band’s iconic hit, “Come Sail Away.” In a 2017 interview with Songwriter Universe, he revealed he found the inspiration for the song after returning from the band’s first trip to Hawaii to a brutal Chicago winter and a professional career that didn’t seem to be taking off like they thought it might.
“John [Panozzo, drummer] and I would stand behind stage sometimes because we were always the bridesmaid and never the bride,” he said. “We backed up every ‘70s classic rock act imaginable. You name it. We were always the guys that went on first. And we would stand backstage sometimes and look at all the equipment [the headliners] had and the nice buses and everything. We were thinking, ‘Were we ever going to participate?’ So, “Come Sail Away” is the marrying of yearning, with the metaphor of sailing away onto beautiful waters, which I got from Hawaii. Those two things came together.”
DeYoung said the career-defining track “is really a song about wanting to be in a better place. I want to go someplace and be the captain. Come sail away, sail away to wherever you want to go.” Even South Park, Colorado.
Photo by Jay West/WireImage
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