Songoftheday 1/16/13 - It was late at night on the open road speeding like a man on the run, a lifetime spent preparing for the journey...

Chris DeBurgh - "Don't Pay The Ferryman"
from the album The Getaway (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day is by British singer-songwriter Chris DeBurgh, who was born to a wealthy family who were residing in Argentina at the time, then returned to Europe to live in a castle in Ireland as a child. Starting out as a progressive rock artist, DeBurgh released his first album in 1974, but it wasn't until his fifth album in 1980 that he had any kind of success with his songs, with the first release "The Traveller" reaching the "bubbling under" portion of the pop chart at #106 and followup "Sailor" making the top-20 in Ireland.

After a "best of" compilation did relatively well in the UK, DeBurgh set out to record his sixth studio set with producer Rupert Hine (who has worked with the Fixx and Stevie Nicks), and the first single released was the dramatic "Don't Pay The Ferryman", with allusions to the afterlife and the underworld, like the passage through the river Styx in Greek mythology....

"Don't Pay The Ferryman" became DeBurgh's first top-40 hit in the US, Canada, and Germany (the latter gave him a #1 album as well), and was really popular in both Ireland and Australia, where it reached the top-10. But surprisingly the single only did modestly in his own country, stalling below the top-40 at #48.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


In 2006 German metal group Domain covered the song for their Stardust album...

Finally, here's DeBurgh in concert from the time...

...and then there's this..

Up tomorrow: some Birds want a Kodak.