Wind Him Up

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew just spun up a real gem for you all out here on THE ZOO. We dropped the needle on Wind Him Up by Saga from their Worlds Apart album, and man, does that one still cut through the air like a sharp guitar solo on a clear night. Those hippie and rock n roll biker DJs know how to pick the deep cuts that get the freer spirits moving, and this track has been a favorite since it first hit the airwaves back in the early eighties. Saga came out of the Canadian progressive rock scene with a sound that mixed heavy synths, tight guitar work, and those soaring vocals that feel like they were built for the open road.

The song itself tells the tale of a fella named Aldo who just cannot stay away from the tables. Lead singer Michael Sadler dreamed up this character who gets completely wrapped up in the casino action, spinning out of control like a clock that is wound too tight. It is not based on any one real person, just the idea of someone who loses the reins once the urge takes hold. Sadler once said in an interview that he was not sure if there was a big lesson or moral in there, but it was really about the gambling and the addiction factor that keeps a person coming back no matter how the night goes. The band wrote it together, and the story landed so well that the record company put together a video showing Aldo falling on hard times in a fancy casino. That clip came right around the time MTV was getting started and hunting for anything visual to play, so it fit right in even though the fellas in the band never wrote it thinking about television.

One of the wildest stories about how the track came together comes straight from Sadler himself talking about the sessions for Worlds Apart. They were over in England at Farmyard Studios in Little Chalfont, working with producer Rupert Hine and engineer Steven Taylor. Those two had been together so long it was almost like they could read each other's minds at the console. For the quiet breakdown in the middle of Wind Him Up, they wanted the vocal to sound really relaxed, smoky, and a bit gritty, an octave lower than the rest. Sadler kept singing it too clean the night before, so they set it aside. The next morning, while he was still half asleep in the old stables that served as their accommodations, the tape operator came in with a microphone and headphones. They played the section, and he just delivered the line in one take without overthinking it. That relaxed, half-awake delivery is exactly what you hear on the record. Sadler has said that is the sound of him just waking up and letting it roll out naturally. The whole album was written while the band lived together in a house in Maidenhead, getting up, having breakfast, and working every day in that new environment after doing their first three records back in Toronto.

Worlds Apart turned into Saga's real breakthrough. Produced by Rupert Hine, it went gold in Canada, Germany, and the United States, and it helped push the band into bigger rooms across Europe where progressive rock fans had already taken to their earlier work. Wind Him Up itself charted well up north in Canada and made a solid showing in places like Germany and Norway, while On the Loose from the same record became a bigger radio hit down in the States. The album showed the band stretching out with those synth-driven grooves and the Crichton brothers' songwriting locking in tight with Sadler's voice. Fans still talk about how the live versions keep that same energy years later, and the band even revisited it in an acoustic form on their later Symmetry album.

As for how Saga got rolling in the first place, it all started in the mid-seventies around Toronto and Oakville. Jim Crichton had been playing bass with the band Fludd, and when that group wound down he connected with Michael Sadler, who had been in a band called Truck. Sadler would swing by Crichton's place between shifts driving a cab in the city, and the two of them started writing songs together. They brought in drummer Steve Negus and keyboardist Peter Rochon, both from the Fludd days, plus Jim's younger brother Ian on guitar. At first they called themselves Pockets, and they made their live debut in June of 1977 at the Tudor Tavern in Cambridge, Ontario, in front of a small crowd of friends and curious locals. They had already built up a couple dozen original tunes and refused to lean on covers, which meant some agents were wary, but the fellas stuck to their own material. After realizing another American band was already using the name Pockets, they switched to Saga, which fit the long-form storytelling they liked to do in their songs.

They financed their first album themselves and released the self-titled debut in 1978 on their own Maze label before Polygram picked it up. It did decent business at home and sold surprisingly well as an import in Germany, which opened the door for European tours. Keyboardists came and went early on, with Jim Gilmour settling in by the Silent Knight album in 1980. By the time Worlds Apart arrived in 1981, the classic lineup was locked in and the songwriting had that extra polish from living and working together overseas. The band built a huge following in Europe that has stuck with them through decades of records, lineup shifts, and tours, while they kept a solid core of fans back in Canada. Those early days of cab rides, small tavern gigs, and self-financed sessions set the stage for everything that followed, including the clockwork energy of a track like Wind Him Up.

If you want to dig deeper into what the band is up to these days, head over to their official site at sagagen.com, where you can catch up on the catalog, the tour calendar, and all the history. You can also follow along on their official Facebook page at Facebook, their Instagram at Instagram, and on X at X. There is an active Official SAGA Facebook Group where fans gather to share stories, memories of shows, and support the music, and you can find that at the Official SAGA Facebook Group. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning the deep cuts and the classics for all you Zoo Freaks, so stay tuned and keep those requests coming. This one from Worlds Apart is a perfect reminder of how a tight band with a good story can still light up the speakers all these years later.