Tommy Shaw celebrates his 66th birthday today (September 11th). The guitarist for Styx started writing the song “Too Much Time on My Hands” in the car on the way to one of the final writing sessions for the Paradise Theatre album. He doesn’t have a lot of songs on Paradise Theatre, a concept album with a story line mostly outlined by Dennis DeYoung. Shaw explains how his only Top 10 pop hit for Styx, “Too Much Time on My Hands,” came to him while driving to one of the final writing sessions for the album.
“I was getting close to there, I’m thinking, ‘I gotta come up with some ideas. I gotta have something to represent me on this record.’ And a few miles from there I started hearing [sings riff]. I heard that and it’s no big deal and so I’m thinking of the chords, how do the chords go? And I’ve got the first verse. And I got in there and as soon as I could, I said, ‘Try this on guitar [sings riff] and when I tell you go down to the C. Within minutes we were well into that song.”
