Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs on 8 June 1944 in Canton, Ohio) is an… Read Full Bio ↴Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs on 8 June 1944 in Canton, Ohio) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1960s as a guitarist and sometimes lead singer with the Steve Miller Band and in the 1970s with several solo Top 20 hit singles in the United States, along with the #2 album, Silk Degrees. Scaggs continues to write, record music and tour.

After learning guitar at the age of 12, Scaggs met Steve Miller at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band The Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin together, playing in blues bands like The Ardells and The Fabulous Knight Trains. Leaving school, Scaggs briefly left Texas to join the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth, he recorded his first solo album Boz in 1965, which was not a commercial success. He traveled to Sweden as a solo performer and did a brief stint with the band The Other Side with fellow American Jack Downing and Brit Mac MacLeod.

Returning to the US, Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums Children of the Future and Sailor, which won over critical reviews. After being spotted by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968. Despite good reviews, his first Atlantic album was met with lukewarm sales, as were followup albums on Columbia Records. In 1976, he linked up with session musicians who would later form Toto and recorded his smash album Silk Degrees. The album reached number 2 on the US charts and number 1 in a number of countries across the world, spawning three hit singles: "Lowdown", "Lido Shuffle", and "What Can I Say", as well as the MOR standard "We're All Alone", later a hit for Rita Coolidge. A sellout world tour followed, but his follow-up album, the 1977 Down Two Then Left, lacked the cohesion of Silk Degrees.

Scaggs' 1980 album Middle Man would spawn two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo," and Scaggs would enjoy two more hits over 1980 and 1981 ("Look What You've Done to Me" from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and "Miss Sun" from a greatest hits set).

Scaggs continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although he semi-retired from the music business and turned owner of the San Francisco nightclub Slim's. His lengthy hiatus from the music industry slowed his chart career down dramatically.

Scaggs recorded Other Roads in 1988, took another hiatus, and then came back in 1994 with Some Change. In the late 190s he released Come On Home, an album of blues, and My Time, an anthology. He garnered good reviews with Dig, although the CD, which was released on September 11, 2001, was lost in the post-911 melée. In May, 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number 1 on the jazz charts.

In 2013 he released the album Memphis

Hard Times
Boz Scaggs Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I am down in the sea of confusion
Neath the waves of no recovery
Swept away by a distant voice calling
Ain't no use in trying to rescue me

I am falling
Back into your spell
Back into your cell of no return

No way to rescue me

I still see you
Reaching out to take your hold on me
Through a crack in the moon
I believed you
But I know this time there ain't no use

I am falling
Back into your spell
Back into a cell of no return
No way to rescue me

Falling
Back into your spell
Back into your cell of no return
No way to rescue me

I am falling
Back into your spell
Back into your cell of no return
No way to rescue me

Back into your spell

Back into your cell of no return
No way to rescue me

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Boz Scaggs’s song “Hard Times” are a powerful tale of a lost love that one cannot seem to rid of. The singer is submerged in a sea of confusion and no recovery. He is swept away by a voice calling out to him from a distance, but he knows there is no way to be rescued. He is falling back into the spell of his old flame, returning to a cell of no return.

The lyrics are rich in imagery and offer many interpretations, but the general theme is quite clear: the singer is under the spell of his former lover, and there is no escape from the emotional pain and confusion he is feeling. The metaphor of the sea is used to describe the depth of the singer’s emotional state, while the distant voice represents the allure of his past love.

The lines “Back into your spell/ Back into your cell of no return” are poignant reminders that sometimes, despite our best efforts, we are unable to move on from past hurts, and the consequences of this may be dire. The final lines, “No way to rescue me/ Back into your spell/ Back into your cell of no return” drive home the reality of the singer’s situation: he is trapped in a cycle of emotional pain, for which there may be no escape.

Line by Line Meaning

I am down in the sea of confusion
I feel lost and overwhelmed.

Neath the waves of no recovery
I am drowning and cannot be saved.

Swept away by a distant voice calling
I am being pulled away by something out of reach.

Ain't no use in trying to rescue me
There's no point in trying to help me, I'm too far gone.

I am falling
I am slipping further into despair.

Back into your spell
I am being controlled by someone or something again.

Back into your cell of no return
I am trapped in a situation with no way out.

No way to rescue me
There is no hope for my situation.

I still see you
I can't escape the influence of whoever or whatever is controlling me.

Reaching out to take your hold on me
Whatever is controlling me is trying to get a tighter grip.

Through a crack in the moon
I am seeing something impossible and surreal.