Renegade
by Styx
- 108
- BPM
- G minor
- Key
- 6A
- Camelot
- 49
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
Some pressings of the "Renegade" single came out on translucent red vinyl. Styx recorded the song for their eighth studio album, Pieces of Eight, in 1979. It was a hit on both the Canadian and American sales charts. Tommy Shaw wrote it and sang it, telling the first-person story of an outlaw, captured for a bounty, who knows he is about to be hanged.
Shaw and fellow guitarist James Young usually played lead on their own compositions, but Shaw asked Young to take the solo on "Renegade." Young agreed. He later let Shaw play lead on his "Half-Penny, Two-Penny" on the album Paradise Theatre.
Live from 1978 to 1983, drummer John Panozzo sped up the drum pattern during the guitar solo sections. The track was also his drum solo spot in those years. The song is still on classic rock radio playlists and is usually the final song Styx plays at its concerts. The band had formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1972.
Renegade runs at 108 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.22 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 556 ms. It is in G minor, Camelot 6A, which shares its notes with Bb major and mixes cleanly with C minor and D minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.