In 1978, Al Stewart released what would become the highest-charting hit song of his career, “Time Passages.”
Written by Stewart and Peter White for the album of the same name, the song featured an electric keyboard hook, an acoustic guitar riff, and a soaring saxophone solo by Phil Kenzie, accompanied by nostalgic lyrics about the fast passage of time.
In an interview posted by HuffPost, White recalled the songwriting and recording sessions with Stewart. “That was actually one of the first songs that I wrote with Al,” he shared. “I played pretty much all of the keyboard and guitar on that song. They brought in a saxophone player, Phil Kenzie, because they wanted the same sound that he’d done with us before. That was another great moment for me because it was my first and only Top 10 hit.”
Indeed, “Time Passages” became a massive radio hit as 1978 came to a close. The song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 9, 1978, amid an 18-week chart run—which was even higher than Stewart’s signature hit, “Year of the Cat,” which only made it to No. 8 in 1977.
In 1979, Billboard named “Time Passages” the No. 1 Adult Contemporary Single of the year.
There was just one problem with “Time Passages”: Stewart wasn’t a fan of the song.
In an interview with acousticstorm.com, the Scottish singer-songwriter once admitted, “I have never really cared for that song., I know it was a big hit and all that. It was just one of those things where the record company asked me to write something that sounded like ‘Year Of The Cat’ and we ended up doing that.”
“I didn’t realize truly how bad a song it was until one day I was in an elevator and I was listening to what I thought was Muzak,” Stewart continued, per Songfacts. “About 30 seconds went by, and I finally began to recognize it and said to myself, ‘This sounds pretty horrible.’ Then, horror of horrors, I heard my voice come on, it actually was the record. So I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God what have I done, this is terrible!’ Hopefully, in the last 25 years I’ve redeemed myself with other things, but ‘Time Passages’ has just never thrilled me.”
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In an interview with Songwriter Universe, Stewart recalled Arista Records CEO Clive Davis ordering him to write “some midtempo ballads—120 beats per minute with a saxophone on it” for his follow-up to the highly successful Year of the Cat album.
“So basically with ‘Time Passages,’ I just cloned ‘Year of the Cat,’” Stewart admitted. “I gave him a couple midtempo ballads with sax, and then the rest of the album I wrote basically for me. There’s a song called ‘Life in Dark Water’ that’s about being trapped in a submarine on the bottom of the ocean for 50 years. That’s more up my street than ‘Time Passages.’”
“A lot of people did like ‘Time Passages,’” Stewart added. “If someone likes anything that I’ve done for any reason, then I’m extremely grateful for it. And of course, it sold lots of copies, and you can’t knock it. But if you asked me if the song stands up as well as [my 1974 song] ‘Roads To Moscow,’ I’d say not.”
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