History
Recording
"Ride Like the Wind" was the first song recorded for Cross's eponymous album and was tracked by Cross's band of Tommy Taylor on drums, Andy Salman on bass, and Rob Meurer on synthesizers. After the first day of recording, Cross's producer Michael Omartian noticed that the band had struggled to become accustomed to the studio. "They were great musicians, but a little nervous". During these recording sessions, someone recommended that Taylor play a four on the floor beat so that the kick drum was playing on every beat. Omartian commented that this drum pattern "made the thing hop from the beginning." After two to three days of tracking, the band produced a satisfactory take. Cross had originally wanted a session guitarist to play the solo, but Omartian insisted that Cross play it himself.
For the vocals, Omartian used an AKG 414 microphone. Cross did four to five vocal takes, all of which possessed similar intonation. "Chris's pitch was ridiculous and he was very stylized, so when you went from one thing to another, he was exactly the same. If there was an impulse to do something like a scat or some kind of a riff, he had thought about it so every single track possessed that same riff." On the original demo, the response vocals were also sung by Cross, although Omartian suggested using a different voice, and ultimately settled on Michael McDonald.
Cross wanted Omartian to play on the record, so the latter overdubbed an acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes electric piano to fulfill this request. Soon after these parts were recorded, Lenny Castro came into the studio to play congas while Victor Feldman recorded additional percussion. A horn and 28-piece string section led by violinist Assa Dror was recorded. To finish "Ride Like the Wind", Cross and engineer Chet Himes decided to start the song with wind sound effects. "It could have ended up being dopey, but we didn't push the volume up on the sound effect to make it take over what was going on." Omartian recalled using a Harrison 48-channel board and two Ampex 1200 24-track machines to record the instruments and vocals. [3]
Lyrics
The lyrics of the song tell the story of a condemned criminal on the run to Mexico. Told from a first-person point of view, it describes how an outlaw and convicted multiple murderer, on the run from a death-by-hanging sentence, has to "ride like the wind" to reach "the border of Mexico".
Cross was high on LSD when he wrote the lyrics. "We were living in Houston at the time, and on the way down to Austin to record the songs, it was just a beautiful Texas day. I took acid. So I wrote the words on the way down from Houston to Austin." [4]
Tributes
In 1981, Canadian sketch comedy SCTV performed a sketch where Rick Moranis portrayed Michael McDonald racing to the studio to record his backing vocals for the song. McDonald later commented on seeing the sketch, "I remember thinking that guy really looks familiar and it was Rick Moranis as me doing this, going into the studios and they’re playing Christopher’s song and I thought I’m losing it, you know, that’s what’s happening? I’m having hallucinations, you know that stuff was stronger than I thought, you know, and then it as it played out I realized this is SCTV and it’s a skit. Thank God for that." [5]
In 1999, the satirical newspaper The Onion published a story with the headline, "Christopher Cross Finally Reaches Mexican Border"; [6] the headline was a reference to the song, and the three-sentence story made several specific allusions to the lyrics. Cross appreciated the honor. [4]
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