It’s one of his biggest songs – and now considered a classic of the retrospectively created yacht rock genre – but Christopher Cross says that his 1980 hit, Ride Like The Wind, actually owes a big debt to Paul McCartney.
Speaking on the Questlove Show, Cross has now revealed the true origins of Ride Like The Wind, his debut single, for what he thinks is the first time – specifically, the famous instrumental turnaround that occurs frequently throughout. He says that this came to him while he was onstage performing a fan-favourite McCartney composition that was released in 1974.
“So we used to play at a club, you know, covers and stuff like that,” says Cross. “We were doing 1985 [Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five], the Wings tune. And we played four or five hours a night so we’d extend tunes – it was a dancefloor – so we're playing 1985, it's in C minor, and we’re getting into a jam, and people are dancing, and I started doing that [sings turnaround from Ride Like The Wind]. And people, I noticed that they were really getting into it, you know, and it was another level of energy.”
Sensing that he was onto something, Cross says that he decided to expand the turnaround – which he saw that people were responding to – into a full song.
“So I took that part, and I went, ‘you know, there's something about this that's got the thing,’ so then I wrote the tune around that,” he confirms. “I had that part first, and then I wrote the verses. And I don't think I've ever told Paul that. He's probably gonna say ‘I should have gotten royalties.’”
Cross is clearly joking when he says this – or half-joking, at least – and we can’t honestly say that the two songs are similar enough to warrant McCartney calling his lawyers any time soon. They are both in C minor, though, and once you know the backstory, there is something about Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five’s rhythm that strikes you as similar.
What’s more, Cross is adamant: “The seed of the song came from 1985, McCartney,” he reiterates. “Yes, I ripped him off.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Cross also discusses the guitar solo in Ride Like The Wind, and his decision to play it himself rather than offer it to one of the many great players that he had in his orbit (Steve Lukather, Larry Carlton, Eric Johnson and Jay Graydon, for example).
Despite being buried in the mix somewhat, the solo is highly regarded, but Cross says that he’s not sure how it ended up being him that took it. “Maybe Omartian [Michael Omartian, producer] said ‘Hey, you should play a solo on something,’” is his best guess.
Cross goes on to suggest that, given the company he was keeping, he was always slightly reluctant to put himself forward for a solo spot, this is also the recollection of Omartian himself.
Speaking to Mixonline in 2015, he said: “He always wanted someone else to play a solo, and I’d say ‘no’. I’d say, ‘Dude, play the solo,’ and he’d just burn it up. After we were done with the record, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen both wanted him to play guitar on one of their records, and he was so intimidated, afraid to do it, and he never did.”
