What is the story behind the song Hey Laura and Christopher Cross?

Answer 1

Laura Carter was the roommate and sorority sister of a Denison University college student named Paige, that Christopher had met at one of his concerts. Cross went so far as to title the album after her (Another Page) and featured her on the inside liner for the album, where she was pictured sitting on a stool. Cross invited Paige to visit him on tour, and in the process of dating her, met Paige's roommate Laura Carter, so the song is quite literally his personal reaction to her tragic death. Laura was killled during homecoming weekend at the college, when she was struck by a stray bullet in the city of Columbus, Ohio, when a bullet fired over a block away during an altercation between 4 men, struck her as she was sitting in the backseat. At the time she was sitting in the back of a car, being driven by her parents, who were visiting her for homecoming, and had taken her and two of her Lacrosse team teammates to dinner following a game she had just played in.

The tragic story of what had happened to this young woman deeply affected everyone on campus at the college, and of course the incident was devastating to Paige. Cross wrote the song as a way of comforting Paige and honoring Laura's memory.

The song was not a hit until many months after the "Another Page" album was releasted, and it was featured in the Soap Opera General Hospital in support of it's popular "Luke and Laura" storyline. Fans of General Hospital began requesting the song, and it eventually became a Top 40 radio hit.