Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1977


Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)

Buy Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




"'Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)'" is the second single released from Styx's 'The Grand Illusion' (1977) album. On the 'Billboard' Hot 100 pop chart in the U.S., the single peaked at #29 in April 1978. It also hit no. 20 on the Canada RPM Top Singles chart the week of May 6, 1978.

The song was written by guitarist Tommy Shaw. It was originally based on Shaw's initial perception of Styx keyboardist Dennis DeYoung an "angry young man" who viewed the group's successes with a wary eye and grew angry or depressed with every setback. It was only in later years that Shaw began to see himself in the lyrics, and the song took on a more personal meaning to him.

The composition features a number of time signature changes. The intro and outro are performed in time, led by Shaw's acoustic guitar tracks and Dennis DeYoung's synthesizer melodies. The vocal sections of the song are in . The instrumental features a synthesizer solo in time, before returning to for the final chorus. After a brief intro recap, there is a brief break with two measures of time, and then a return to the meter, with another synthesizer solo, before fading out.

Chart performance



Weekly charts



Year-end charts



Personnel



* Tommy Shaw lead vocals, acoustic lead guitar

* James Young electric rhythm guitar, backing vocals

* Dennis DeYoung keyboards, backing vocals

* Chuck Panozzo bass

* John Panozzo drums

References




Buy Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) now from Amazon

<-- Return to songs from 1977



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1076379620.