“It’s one of our few songs I listen to all the way through without cringing or wondering, ‘What were we thinking?’” Canadian band scored their biggest hit after being pushed out of their comfort zone

When Saga’s 1981 single On The Loose became the third most-played record in the United States that year, no one was more surprised than the people who wrote it – although they’d had an inkling something special was happening, as they told Prog in 2010.

When Canadian band Saga started work on 1981 album Worlds Apart, they decided to make a crucial change to the way things had been done on their first three records.

“Our management wanted to get us away from our comfort zone in Toronto,” recalls synth player and vocalist Jim Gilmour. “So we moved to Maidenhead in England for six months, and worked on the new songs six days a week.”

When lead single On The Loose reached Number 26 in the US singles chart and Number 3 on the Top Rock Chart, nobody was more surprised than the people who wrote it. “We never expected that to happen,” Gilmour says.

“I’d written the keyboard intro in a rehearsal room in Toronto, and then forgot about it. Michael Sadler found this little piece on a cassette, and we wrote the song together in the dining room of the Maidenhead house.”

Vocalist/keyboardist Sadler adds: “I do remember there was something tangible in the air. I think everyone knew we had something special on our hands.”

He and Gilmour are quick to praise producer Rupert Hine’s role in developing the song. “What Rupert did was to encourage us to think outside of the norm,” says Sadler. “If we’d done this song on any of our previous records, it wouldn’t have come out the way it did. It almost certainly would never have a hit.”

Gilmour notes: “Rupert’s real strength was in pushing us quite a bit harder than we were used to. Without that, I doubt On The Loose would have fully realised its commercial potential.”

It remains the only Saga single to reach the US Top 30, and at one point it was the third most-played song in the States. Sadler is proud of what they did. “It’s one of the few Saga songs that I listen to all the way through without either cringing at certain moments or wondering, ‘What were we thinking?’”