Ride Like the Wind - Joey Negro Extended Disco Mix

This soft rock classic tells the story of a condemned man on the run to Mexico. The storyline is one not often heard on Adult Contemporary radio, but the precise instrumentation and soaring background vocals, which were provided by Michael McDonald, helped make the song a big hit. What you probably didn't know about the song: Christopher Cross was on acid 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," he told Songfacts. "I took acid. So I wrote the words on the way down from Houston to Austin on acid."

Speaking about his inspiration for the outlaw theme in this song, Cross told us: "I grew up with a lot of cowboy movies. Serials and stuff, like The Lone Ranger and these cowboy serials where they were always chasing the bad guy. And I lived in San Antonio near Mexico, so there was always this anarchistic allure about if you could get to Mexico, you could escape the authority. Also, Mexico was a place where you could go down there and drink and do all this debauchery that as a kid, you think sounds really cool. So getting to the border in Mexico was a fascinating thing to me."

This song originated out of live performances by Christopher Cross and his band when they would play a 1973 Paul McCartney & Wings song called "Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five." They would jam on the song, and in the middle section, Cross would do the "ba da da da, da da, da da" part, which became the centerpiece of "Ride Like The Wind."