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"Don't Stop Believin'" lyrics

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Don't Stop Believin'

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Lyrics submitted by numb , edited by kymara1053 , Mellow_Harsher , Alberto09

Don't Stop Believin' Lyrics as written by Stephen Ray Perry Jonathan Cain

Lyrics © Hipgnosis Songs Group

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What a bunch of simpletons (not all of you, there are some insightful posts on here)!

Yes there are lyrics that loosely allude to a hooker. It's called an allegory people (look it up if you need to).

The song is about the common search for love and the fear of loneliness. The lyrics you are focusing in on are a metaphor for all of the things we use to fill the void in out lives so we don't feel the pain of emptiness and loneliness. The chorus provides an optimistic counterpoint to this - "Don't stop belivin'" Yes, it's a lonely world, and finding someone is hard, but hope makes it all bearable (believing that there is someone there for you).

It also addresses escaping from your past, whatever it may be, and looking toward a better tomorrow.

For those who have to have it spelled out line by line (or at least stanza by stanza):

Small town girl..city boy...midnight train: A commonality between us all, regardless of our backgrounds, the loneliness of adolescence, escaping from your past.

Smokey room...for a smile...on and on: Metaphoric for the places/circumstances we seek love and companionship (the stereotype being a bar). We are so desperate to not be lonely that we'll form a relationship simply on the basis of a smile (again metaphorical, though often literal). "On and On," again referring to our common condition, this scene is repeatedly played out day in and out - we're all searching for love and companionship.

"Strangers waiting": We are all strangers to each other, no one has experienced exactly what you have, and there is a certain inherent isolation in that. "Up and down the boulevard": Everywhere, every town, every person, through all life experience. "Their shadows searching in the night": The night represents isolation and separation from others. Shadows are our own inner darkness (or demons, our deepest secrets). We are haunted by our personal ghosts, and are seeking someone who will understand and relate to us despite who we are. The shadows aren't really seeking (since shadows aren't actually anything, but the absence of light), but us seeking someone with whom we can share who we really are. "Streetlight, people": What we project ourselves to be to the world - how we want people to see us. "Living just to find emotion": Again, we are isolated and seeking meaningful relationships, but willing to settle for something to make us feel less empty, so we will fill that void with any sort of connection. "Hiding, somewhere in the night": See above, any sort of superficial emotional connection seems to be preferable to being alone in the darkness.

"Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill":Putting forth a great deal of effort to make those connections, the fact that we often substitute cheap thrills (sex?) for true meaning and connection in relationships. "Payin' anything...": We will sacrifice a great deal to avoid being loney, even if the reward is fleeting. "Some will win...": Some will find a true, meaningful relationship, some won't, some never will. "the movie...": This cycle goes on and on with, just the players change over time.

"Don't stop believin', Hold on to that feelin'": Don't give up hope, keep searching for that meaningful relationship regardless of how difficult and trying the search is. "Streetlight people": Again, see above - everyone has their "public face" which we present. Despite our inherent shallowness, keep seeking the deeper, more meaningful connection.

I know it's popular to bash Journey and this song simply because of how popular they were in the 80's and that they to some extent defined popular music for that era - move beyond that. I'm a huge Rush fan, I love the work that Neil Peart puts into crafting his lyrics and the meaning behind them. That said, I defy you to find another song that in 19 lines more accurately sums up the human condition when it comes to seeking out someone to connect with and the loneliness everyone feels. I guarantee you a good portion of the popularity of this song is that so many people can relate to it, even if they can't exactly define why. This is a masterfully written (and performed piece of art), and deserves recognition as such.

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@Tristar I completely appreciate every word you took the time to break this down so well, seems like You wrote the song!

@Tristar LMAO... are you a dumbass. Calling people names, when you are 100% off the writer of the song, comes right out and proclaims its about his walk to jesus. Before you start throwing rocks, best make sure your in a kevlar building... l.facebook.com/l.php

That one line..."some will win, some will lose.." That line couldnt be more true. this one time i won, and then this other time, i lost. steve perry really tells it like it is.

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This song is about never giving up on love. Everyone feels lonely sometimes. This song makes me think that every time I am sad or lonely there is someone else out there who might be lonely too and that someday we will meet. It sounds dumb I guess, maybe naive or hopelessly romantic but I think its true. I "hold on to that feeling" of hope all the time.

This song is extremely special to me. My father died when I was young and always used to tell me "Keep the faith, Kris. Keep the faith." This song has never let me down and I think it's exactly that; keep the faith and don't stop believing no matter what happens. There is always something great out there as long as you believe it exists. I've experienced some rough things in my life and whenever I asked God to help me, this song would play on the radio or wherever I was.

I was supposed to graduate from college in May 2011, and I couldn't because I had to repeat my 90 hours for teaching. I knew God had a plan for me for some reason although I didn't know what. I ended up student teaching at the school attached to my Church. I could not have asked for a better experience. I honestly could not or would not have asked for a better sign from God that I have a bright future in this field.

Never give up on yourself or your dreams, keep going and NEVER stop believing.

i love this song. best journey song hands down.

I think this song is defintely about fate, hope, love, and of course, believing. We all want love/thrill/emotion.. and we try to find it, often through lust. we end up not getting it. it's saying just don't stop believing. it will happen someday.

this song is about fate. How two lonley people from two different areas are lookingand waiting for love. Everybody wants emotion(love) but not all of us are that lucky. And for those who arn't that lucky well "Dont stop believin".

<br /> <br /> Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world <br /> She took the midnight train going anywhere <br /> <br /> just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit<br /> He took the midnight train going anywhere<br /> <br /> ( Ok so listen up because this is where you have to really start thinking... I solely hope to concey both clearly and simply to you why this song is in my mind, about prostitutes. Yes, hookers, harlots, and whores... To many times people for lack of better words " Judge a book by it's cover". I know that the first couple of lines have confused many people, but what the writer really tries to get you to do is create in your mind a character for you to get to understand, and hopefully also sympathies with by the end of the narrative. People will confuse themselves often, as they create the story in their minds with two protagonists for the song, because well they want to think it is about themselves. Though while it is an effective literary technique to put the reader in the story, I believe that this story is ment to be looked at from afar to picture a story of people we will probably never get to know. Now that I have your attention please feel free to re-read the lyrics, I have even provided my own comments on the lines for those who chose to read them ) . . . . . .<br /> <br /> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> <br /> A singer in a smoky room<br /> The smell of wine and cheap perfume<br /> <br /> ( when writers tell a story they know that one element of that tale is the setting, the where, the when, and sometimes the why. In the case of these lines the author, as i will call the writer or writers, the author is developing the where, by enlightening multiple of our senses to the setting. The singer gives us something to picture hearing, and maybe even watching as she is providing entertainment. The smoky room gives us something to picture smelling, and again maybe is gives us a visual of smoke in hanging in the air as it often does in a bar. The last line I will leave you to interpret, but i would ask if you try to let your imagination wander.)<br /> <br /> For a smile they can share the night<br /> It goes on and on and on and on<br /> <br /> ( Now that the author has developed a setting for us he reintroduces the protagonist [ Prostitute ],<br /> and the other character [ male Client ]. And then for whatever reason, destiny or randomness, these two people, which few people on here tend to agree on what method is the right one. Yes the male smiles and yes the pair share the night in whatever ways your imagination can take you. )<br /> <br /> Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard<br /> Their shadows searching in the night<br /> <br /> ( Now the author ask us to picture a different setting, note that the protagonist is not necessarily present. The author shows us people on a boulevard probably one that looks much like one you've seen as it is your own creation to imagine. There shadows most typically an ominous symbol in literature describe the setting quite differently than the up beat tempo of the music. This darkness is actually quite a prevalent theme throughout. " Midnight Train", "Shadows searching in the night". )<br /> <br /> Streetlight people, living just to find emotion<br /> Hiding somewhere in the night<br /> <br /> ( These lines tell us about the people in this new scene. The streetlight's depict how they can be found on street corners, where the look for emotion, whether it is happiness because of that they feel nought, or also find sadness, because there possibly self-destructive habits lead them to repeatably find themselves in terrible situations, "On and on and on and on.".<br /> <br /> Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill<br /> Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time<br /> <br /> ( The use of the word my should suggest to the reader that the author is now speaking in first person through the protagonist. She is work hard at prostitution just to get a fill, not a T.V. or Car, like many of us including myself, look forward to saving for. But after all as we have been told many times, prostitution is the oldest profession and, "Everybody wants a thrill". There is a reason why there is a general consensus, that, "Streetlight People" as I like to call them are some of the lowest people. This is because they have said au revoir to there morals and paid the highest price and made the greatest sacrifice in selling the one thing they truly own... their bodies.)<br /> <br /> Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues<br /> Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on<br /> <br /> ( Yes some people will win, they will be rich maybe be famous, others will lose as we all have once or twice, and, "Some were born to sing the blue's". And what better music for the author to use to describe the life of a prostitute than the most soulful, most passionate, and often the saddest ever produced. And yes this movie you have imagined for yourself, "Goes on and on and on and on".<br /> <br /> Don't stop believing<br /> Hold on to that feeling<br /> Streetlight people <br /> <br /> ( And the story ends with touching sentiments and a kind high pitched final farewell, to all those Streetlight people that obviously everyone seems to like so much. )<br /> <br /> <br /> * This is my take of the song, I hope you enjoyed how I tried to connect most every line if not word, but if you still have any questions or if you want to try to rebut me feel free to email me at [email protected] my name is Stephen Graham Hajosy and would love to hear other peoples input to a song that I personally love to sing at the top of my lungs at every home Oregon Ducks football game** <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

it's just basically telling us that there is that special someone out there for each of us. except i think i would be the one who "sings the blues" as steve perry put it.

Love what Glee did with this. The cover is amazing, and I think it captures all the energy of the original. Wow. This was (and still is) such a FANTASTIC song!

I have always interpreted this song as to the randomness of two souls finding each other. Out of nowhere, completely unexpected, not even looking, but their hearts are open to the possibility. The conclusion of these lyrics is actually the first verse of the song.

The rest is filled with methaphors of the arduous journey, and seemingly hopeless search. It may seem like a lost cause at times, but like the title of the song says, "Don't stop believin'".

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Don't Stop Believin'

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Journey is an American rock band formed in 1973 in San Francisco by former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch. The band has gone through several phases; its strongest commercial success occurred between 1978 and 1987, after which it temporarily disbanded. During that period, the band released a series of hit songs, including 1981's "Don't Stop Believin'", which became in 2009 the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history. Its parent studio album, Escape, the band's eighth and most successful, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and yielded another of their most popular singles, "Open Arms". Its 1983 follow-up, Frontiers, was almost as successful in the United States, reaching No. 2 and spawning several successful singles; it broadened the band's ap… more »

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Written by: Jonathan Cain, Stephen Ray Perry, Neal Joseph Schon

Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, WORDS & MUSIC A DIV OF BIG DEAL MUSIC LLC

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Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

Songfacts®:

• Journey's most enduring song, this track has a unique structure, which helps it stick in your mind. Where most songs have a chorus that's repeated several times, "Don't Stop Believin'" brings in its chorus (and title) only at the end - about 3:20 into the song. The structure goes: instrumental, first verse, instrumental, second verse, first pre-chorus, instrumental, third verse, second pre-chorus, instrumental, and then finally the chorus until fade-out. It was not their biggest chart hit (that would be " Open Arms "), but is by far Journey's most famous song, thanks to a resurgence in the '00s.
• The line, "Strangers waiting, up and down the Boulevard" is a reference to Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, where dreams are made. Keyboard player Jonathan Cain got the idea for the song when he went there to pursue his career. In his Songfacts interview , Cain said: "The song began with the chorus. My father had coached me. I was in Hollywood, struggling with my career, kind of lost. I was asking him, 'Should I come back to Chicago and just give up on this dream?' And he said, 'No, son. Stay the course. We have a vision. It's gonna happen. Don't stop believin'.'" Cain's dream came true when he joined a group called The Babys with John Waite. In 1980, he joined Journey in San Francisco, and this song took shape. He told Steve Perry about his idea for placing the song in Sunset Boulevard, and Perry had him describe it. "I described the menagerie of people who would show up on a Friday night," Cain said. "All the dreamers that had dreams to become actors. Producers, artists, lawyers, anything... they were all there on a Friday night."
• Journey lead singer Steve Perry, keyboard player Jonathan Cain and guitarist Neal Schon are the credited songwriters on this one, but the entire band contributed. In the Time3 compilation, the genesis of this song is explained: "At the band's Oakland warehouse, this song bubbled out of a rehearsal. Schon developed the bass riff, the chugging guitar line and the sweeping chords on the chorus. Steve Smith built the song around a pattern featuring a lot of tom-toms, anchoring the number to a rich drum figure. Perry and Cain drew from their experiences with the Sunset Strip street scene for the lyrics, 'streetlight people.'"
• Speaking with New York Magazine , Perry explained that the song originated during a series of gigs in Detroit when he found himself in a hotel room unable to sleep, staring out of the window: Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Streetlight people, living just to find emotion Hiding, somewhere in the night "I was digging the idea of how the lights were facing down, so that you couldn't see anything," he recalled. "All of a sudden I'd see people walking out of the dark, and into the light. And the term 'streetlight people' came to me. So Detroit was very much in my consciousness when we started writing."
• The popular resurgence of this song can be traced to its use in the 2003 movie Monster , which was based on the true story of the female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The film was not widely seen but drew critical raves and a Best Actress Oscar for Charlize Theron, who portrayed Wuornos. In the movie, the song comes on when Wuornos and Selby Wall (played by Christina Ricci) are skating to it in a roller rink. They mention how they love the song, and as it builds, so does their passion, and they end up kissing outside the rink. The use of "Don't Stop Believin'" in this critically adored scene got the attention of the Hollywood community, who saw the emotion the song could bring out and no longer thought of it as a nostalgia track. Requests started pouring in to use the song in a variety of movies and TV shows, and soon another generation was familiar with the song. So how did it get in Monster in the first place? The film's director Patty Jenkins used it when they shot the scene and knew it fit perfectly. She sent the band members viewing copies of the film and asked permission to use it on a short budget. Perry called her back and not only gave approval, but helped her select music for the rest of the film; he's credited as a music consultant.
• The song was written to give the audience a connection with the band, a goal it achieved. Jonathan Cain told Songfacts: "It was the first attempt to bring an audience into the band's world. We're singing for you. We're singing about your world now. So, it was a departure from what they had been doing before. What I wanted to do was get a little Bruce Springsteen going on. Bruce was the master of that, bringing his audience into his songs. I was a huge fan of Bruce's."
• Speaking with the British radio station Planet Rock in 2010, Steve Perry said of this song: "Personally, it's something that means a lot to me. Everybody has emotional issues and problems, and the song has helped me personally to not give up, and I'm finding a lot of people feel that."
• This is the first track on Journey's seventh album, Escape . It was chosen to lead the album because, according to Cain, "With that piano line, it just sounds like a book opening up."
• The song got a boost when it was used as the closing number in Rock of Ages , a jukebox musical featuring hits of the '80s. The show ran on Broadway from 2009-2015, and in 2012 was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise. It's an appropriate choice, as Rock of Ages takes place on Sunset Boulevard, which is also the primary setting for the song.
• In the last ever episode of the TV show The Sopranos , which aired June 10, 2007, Tony Soprano plays this song on a jukebox during the final scene. The episode abruptly ends with the lyrics "Don't Stop" as the scene cuts to black. Steve Perry said in People magazine June 13, 2007: "I needed to know how this song was going to be used. I didn't want the song to be part of a blood-bath, if that was going to be the closing moment. In order for me to feel good about approving the song use, they had to tell me what happened. And they made me swear that I would not tell anybody."
• This was featured in an episode of the TV show Scrubs called "My Journey." Other television series and films to use "Don't Stop Believin'" include South Park , The Wedding Singer , Shrek the Halls , Bedtime Stories , Yes Dear , King of the Hill , The Comebacks , View from the Top , Cold Case , CSI: Crime Scene Investigation , My Name Is Earl , Just Shoot Me and Laguna Beach .
• In November 2008 it was announced that this track had become the first song available in the pre-digital era to sell more than 2 million downloads through iTunes. The track's popularity increased significantly after its appearance in the final episode of The Sopranos . It also became one of the most popular karaoke songs in America in the late '00s.
• In May 2009 a remake by the cast of the Fox TV musical comedy Glee debuted at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, five places higher than Journey's version ever reached. It was performed in the season pilot and became part of the soundtrack album Glee: The Music, Volume 1 . By the end of 2009, the digital download had earned 500,000 digital sales. The Glee version was performed on Sesame Street with monsters portraying the cast. The bit featured the letter G, so the lyrics were adapted to "Don't stop G-ing."
• Believing in yourself and following your passion are ideals Steve Perry holds dear. When Randy Jackson, who used to play bass with Journey, was a judge on the singing competition American Idol , he asked Perry to come on as a guest judge. Perry turned him down, saying, "I don't feel good about sitting in judgment of anyone's honest passion to perform or their talent. If someone has a passion to perform, they should do it no matter what anyone says." Perry added: "I was passed on in the music business many, many times before Herbie [Journey manager Walter Herbert] heard my demo and believed in me. That was the moment that changed my life and I'm still forever grateful to him for believing in me. The hardest part is to keep believing in what you love when others tell you that you are not good at it."
• MTV went on the air shortly before this song was released. The band made a Spartan performance video for it in an empty arena, apparently at a soundcheck. They made a better one with footage from a Houston stop on their Escape tour, which became the official video that shows up on their VEVO account. Neither video got much love on MTV, which preferred concept videos.
• In the UK, this song peaked at #62 when it was first released. In November 2009, it was rereleased after Joe McEldry sang it on the TV show X-Factor , and this time, it climbed to #19. Joe McElderry won the competition, and franchise boss Simon Cowell wanted to release his version of the song as the single in the aftermath of the teenage singer's victory. However, Journey declined and Cowell instead arranged for McElderry to cover Miley Cyrus' track " The Climb ." Guitarist Neal Schon explained to The Sun : "We knew about Joe's version because Simon had contacted our management. He wanted to re-do the song with a different arrangement. We listened to it. We declined. There was nothing wrong with the original version - if it's not busted, let's not fix it." Schon added that Journey were aware they were possibly passing up a UK #1 hit. "Randy Jackson, who was on American Idol with Simon, was stressing that we should let him do it because it would probably go to #1. But we stuck to our decision."
• In the UK, the Glee Cast version debuted at #5 on the UK singles chart dated January 17, 2010, one place above Journey's original recording. It was the first instance of two versions of the same song sitting at back to back positions on the chart since December 2008 when Alexandra Burke's take on " Hallelujah " was at #1 with Jeff Buckley's version one place behind.
• The song starts with Perry singing about a young couple from two different backgrounds: Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world She took the midnight train goin' anywhere Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit He took the midnight train goin' anywhere But hang on a sec, any good Motor City citizen will tell you, there is no location called South Detroit; Detroit, Michigan, distinguishes only between an East Side and a West Side. If you go south in Detroit ("down-river"), you end up in Canada. Perry admitted to New York Magazine that he wasn't overly concerned with being geographically accurate. "I ran the phonetics of east, west, and north, but nothing sounded as good or emotionally true to me as South Detroit," he said. "The syntax just sounded right. I fell in love with the line. It's only been in the last few years that I've learned that there is no South Detroit. But it doesn't matter."
• This was used in the 1982 Atari video game Journey Escape . The song played in the background while you controlled various band members, helping them find the space ship while avoiding groupies and evil promoters. Computer graphics were pretty bad back then, so the groupies were represented as hearts with legs, and the promoters were floating heads. In fact, the very game was created to be based on the band Journey and the album Escape .
• This was one of the first Journey songs on which keyboard player Jonathan Cain played. He replaced Gregg Rolle for the Escape album.
• Lady Gaga, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Blondie and Shirley Bassey performed this at the finale of a Rainforest Fund benefit at Carnegie Hall in May 2010.
• This song was used in a 2005 episode of animated TV series Family Guy where Peter, Joe, Cleveland, and Quagmire did a drunken karaoke rendition of the song. ITunes was catching on at this point, and after this episode aired there was a spike in download sales of the song. >> Suggestion credit : Bert - Pueblo, NM
• Journey toured to support this album, but they interrupted their tour to open for The Rolling Stones in Philadelphia on September 25, 1981. It was The Stones first show on their North American tour.
• This became the anthem of the Chicago White Sox during their 2005 season in which they won the World Series. Steve Perry attended the last game of the Series and sang the song at their victory parade. Perry's allegiance though, is to his hometown team the San Francisco Giants. He was often seen supporting the team when they won World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Perry would sometimes lead the crowd in singing along to "Don't Stop Believin'" when it was played between innings at games.
• Steve Perry severed ties with Journey in 1998 when he needed hip replacement surgery and couldn't give his bandmates a return date. Anxious to tour, they replaced him with the similar sounding Steve Augeri, and later with Arnel Pineda. For Journey fans, a dream scenario finds Perry reuniting with the band, triumphantly taking the helm on "Don't Stop Believin'" in an affirmation of unity and faith. But every year, they scenario seems less likely. In 2017 when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Perry attended but didn't perform with the band, which did three songs (including this one) with Pineda. When Perry emerged with a solo album, Traces , in 2018, he offered some insight into his split with the band and his absence. "My love for music had suddenly left me," he said. "If music was ever to return to my heart, then and only then I would figure out what to do. If not... so be it, for I had already lived the dream of dreams." Journey first fractured in 1987 after touring for their Raised On Radio album. This was Perry's doing, as he was burned out and worried about keeping his voice healthy. But it was Perry who initiated their return, calling Cain in 1995 to talk about getting back together. This resulted in the 1996 album Trial by Fire ; Perry's hip condition emerged after it was finished.
• "Don't Stop Believin'" powered Journey's 1988 Greatest Hits album to a whopping 15 million in US sales ( Escape sold 9 million), making it one of the best-selling compilation albums in history. In 2001, they released another compilation, The Essential Journey , which sold another 2 million.
• During the 2020 pandemic, some hospitals used the song as a rallying call for patients recovering from COVID-19 and those treating them. The New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, for instance, played "Don't Stop Believin'" throughout the building each time they discharged a coronavirus patient.
• In 2020, Ladbaby, a UK duo comprising YouTuber Mark Hoyle and his wife Roxanne, released a playful twist on this song titled " Don't Stop Me Eatin' ." Recorded to raise money for foodbank charity The Trussell Trust, Ladbaby's single was the UK's Official Christmas #1 that year.
• "Don't Stop Believin'" was honored by the Library of Congress, which added it to the National Recording Registry in 2022. Steve Perry said: "That song, over the years, has become something that has a life of its own. It's about the people who've embraced it and found the lyrics to be something they can relate to and hold onto and sing."
• On January 26, 2024, the RIAA certified "Don't Stop Believin'" at 18x Platinum, a jump from 5x Platinum in 2013. The new certification reflects streaming, and signals that the song is immensely popular across generations. Other songs to reach that milestone are all far more recent, like " Sunflower " by Post Malone. Based on these figures, it's safe to say that "Don't Stop Believin'" is the most widely popular song of all-time in America. You can play it to anyone and they'll certainly recognize the song and probably like it. The next-closest song from the pre-streaming era is Mariah Carey's " All I Want For Christmas Is You ," with a 14x Platinum certification in 2024.
• More songs from Journey
• More songs about perseverance
• More songs used in TV shows
• More songs used in movies
• More popular Karaoke songs
• More songs that were hits for more than one artist
• More songs covered by the Glee cast
• More songs that are discussed in movies
• More songs popular during the coronavirus pandemic
• More motivational songs
• More songs from 1981
• Lyrics to Don't Stop Believin'
• Journey Artistfacts

Comments: 119

• Chad Eicher from Apple Creek, Ohio This song has got to be one of the greatest hit songs that I knew the words to. The cast of the Fox television show "Glee" did their version of that hit song. It just blew me away.
• Rw Cain, at a songwriters festival in 2014, explained some parts of the song. The girl and guy story is like a version of Jack And Diane; they may not be real people. The trains moving at midnight is inspired by the song Midnight Train To Georgia. Live versions of the song, depending on the main vocalist, may change South Detroit to whatever city the band is playing in at that moment.
• Soulsoldseparately from Buffalo, Ny Does "city boy born and raised in South Detroit" refer to an actual person?
• Seventh Mist from 7th Heaven My daughter's favorite song. She often used it as inspiration once she was on her own and (seemingly) facing a new challenge every day. She never stopped believing.
• Susan from Illinois Question-asker from A Train Going Anywhere, I think the lyric means ourselves. The movie is our lives. I believe our lives on this planet will end, but our souls will live on and on in another place.
• Ronsha from New Jersey OMG. This song is so dang famous! People everywhere know this song. I swear to God it's even growing on the younger generations, including me. I used to hate it and think it's overrated, but deep down I always thought, oh darn, this song's catchy, who am I kidding? I'm 13 now and Don't Stop Believin' is one of the most uplifting songs I've ever heard. Not only the sound, but also the lyrics are beautiful. Good song to make you feel strong, nostalgic... it could make you cry too.
• Brett from Mason Whether we choose to hear Streetlight People for street lights, people Steve Perry came right out and said after a concert in Detroit he is looking out from his hotel room down on the street and there we're people just wandering around the street. Not necessarily prostitutes or any other specific type of people. More or less aimlessly wandering around Under The Lights doing nothing. Mendez for the South Detroit I don't think he was intending to give a geography lesson. He was making a song sound the best it could possibly be
• Mckinzie from United States This is my all time favorite song, I say that this is my song because I could relate to this song so much.
• Nick from Ohio This is the most played classic hit of all time. Who would have thought that a song that peaked at #9 would become the undisputed biggest song in history.
• Badintense from Erie Pa This song has crossed all generations and ethnicities as a beloved song. Last summer (2019) in my neighborhood a group of young black teens were hauling their giant boom box down the street blaring this song and singing the words perfectly as if they were in an adult karaoke bar. It actually brought a tear to my eye since I was a teen when this song first came out in 1981. Journey's music has really brought people together into a common bond no matter what the media tries to push on people.
• Question-asker from A Train Going Anywhere what does the lyric "Oh, the movie never ends It goes on and on, and on, and on" mean in this song?
• Seventhmist from 7th Heaven I recently took a long trip and played a Journey collection in my car, downloaded from a phone app. It contained a live version of this song, performed in Houston, that I hadn’t heard before. When Perry reached line about the boy, he sang, “Just a city boy, born and raised right here in Houston!” That definitely caught me by surprise.
• Jodie from Xx I'm pretty sure he's saying "streetlights, people". Not "streetlight people".
• Steve from Albany, Ny And the nonsense about Windsor being "considered" south Detroit continues to stick to the Wiki page like doodoo. LOL It's been said by many that you should never rely on Wiki as a source of reliable / accurate information. Very true.
• Charles from Charlotte The stuff about lowlife killer Eileen Wuernos kissing her female lover just sullies the discussion of a great American pop song. Wish Perry & Co, had said NO!! to that.
• Leonardo from Connecticut I would argue that the Sopranos season finale repopularized the song, not Monster...
• Tony from San Diego Steve Smith plays an amazing drum pattern during the choruses.
• Steve from Albany, Ny The info on the Wikipedia page for this song is inaccurate. And some moderator is allowing it to be there. I guess the following from John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band's song C-I-T-Y was actually referring to Windsor too: "On the South side of Detroit city I'm working all night on the line" Yep, definitely referring to Windsor, Ontario because everyone knows Windsor, Ontario is "considered" south Detroit. Right. LOL
• Steve from Albany, Ny Regarding "south Detroit", I'm simply going to paste in what I just got done explaining to a mod at Wiki who is apparently bent on leaving misinformation on the Wiki page for this song. Sorry but this is pretty simple stuff and anyone who doesn't get it is an imbecile. ........................ I'm guessing / just realizing that you're a type of moderator here. If you in fact have control over what info is on the page in question, it would be a HUGE wrong to leave in the very misleading entry you've re-submitted. Windsor, Ontario is south _OF_ Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is the city that NUMEROUS bands would make reference to in their songs. Especially rock bands and especially during the 70s into the 80s. Not Windsor and not any other suburbs of Detroit that also lie south of Detroit (or "downriver"). The song simply makes reference to the south SIDE of Detroit. The quote by Perry makes it clear that the word south was only added because... well, try singing it without south and just a long INNNN in it's place. As the quote makes clear, the song would not have sounded right without south (or something) before the word Detroit. Not that it's is needed for most to understand that the song is referencing Detroit and only Detroit but there is also a quote by Perry in which he stated that Detroit was very much in their (the writers) minds as they wrote the song. Windsor is not a part of Detroit. The song makes reference to the south side of Detroit. If the entry about Windsor is left on the page, so be it, but it is completely misleading and wrong.
• John from Chino, Ca This song is played during the final minutes of Detroit Red Wings home games where it seems evident that the team will win. Played over the PA system, the song is muted so the crowd can sing the verse, "Born and raised in South Detroit."
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny On December 13th 1981 "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey peaked at #9 (for 3 weeks) on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; it had entered the chart on October 25th and spent 9 weeks on the Top 100... It reached #2 in Canada and #6 in the U.K. Was one of four tracks from the group's 1981 album 'Escape' to make the Top 100 (the others were "Who's Crying Now" (4), "Still They Ride" (#19) and "Open Arms" (#2)... And on September 12th, 1981 the album peaked at #1 (for 1 week) on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart.
• Steve from Albany, Ny Some of the comments here regarding this song and it's mentioning of south Detroit are ridiculous. Saying there is no south Detroit is funny enough (there is a south side of any city and I was born and raised in SW Detroit myself) but I especially get a kick out of the people who say the song is referring to Windsor. If the following Steve Perry quote is accurate, "All of a sudden I'd see people walking out of the dark, and into the light. And the term 'streetlight people' came to me. So Detroit was very much in my consciousness when we started writing.", then the ONLY city being referenced in the song is Detroit. If by chance the lyrics were written as "South Detroit" as opposed to "south Detroit", I suppose that could indicate that Perry/ the writers were thinking of some area of Detroit or evena separate town with that name but it's not likely and that capital S is the only error here. There's nothing complicated here, the song simply refers to the south side of Detroit.
• Jay from Centereach, Long Island, Ny I am surprised that the "South Detroit" line is so controversial. As a New Yorker, and not wholly familiar with the local geography or the neighborhood names of Detroit, I always thought South Detroit simply meant the southern part of Detroit, much like the South Bronx is the southern part of the Bronx. But who cares? This is a great song; no one should be concerned about a geographic error.
• Deethewriter from Saint Petersburg, Russia Federation Neal Schon told RAW RAWK RU NEWS 2011-10-24 that the recent resurgence of "Don't Stop Believin'" after appearing on The Sopranos and Glee -- as well as becoming the first iTunes song to reach two million downloads -- is beyond his comprehension: "When the record came out, there were other songs that were actually bigger than that off it on radio. Y'know, to have it this many years later just come out and be bombastic (laughs) like never before, just like all over the place and just keep on . . . It just keeps on going. Y'know, it's just pretty amazing."
• Terry from Grafon, Wi This song should be the national anthem of the United States.
• Willie from Scottsdale, Az Bwaaahahaha! Now Michelle "White House Crasher" Salahi is shacking up with Neal Schon. Priceless.
• Ken from San Mateo, Ca Since last year's World Series victory, I will always associate this song to the Giants and the Bay Area. Absolutely one of the best songs!!!!
• Hannah from Gustavus, Oh I'm graduating this coming Sunday (May 29, 2011) and I couldn't be more thrilled that this was voted in as our class song. When they announced it at school you could hear people cheering. I think the reason it's such an enduring song for graduation is that unlike most of the class themes that get picked ("Good Riddance," "Here's to the Night," etc.) it's not about looking back and being sad it's over, but rather looking forward and realizing there is indeed life afterward. It's about living life to the fullest (the first verse) and how even though life is difficult ("some are born to sing the blues"), the important thing is to at least take chances and try ("roll the dice just one more time") - and of course, to not give up no matter what may happen, because everything will turn out just fine in the end.
• Michael from Cincinnati, Oh Journey's 1982 album "Eascape was made into a video game titled "Escape".It was produced by Atari for the 2600 model.It was made by Data Age in San Jose,Cal.The Object of the game was to help the band members "Escape" the fans chasing them around.Pretty cool game at the time.
• Steppy from Detroit, Mi *South Detroit Debate* I'm from metro Detroit (as well as a giant Journey fan) and had always wondered about the reference to South Detroit. I heard and interview a year or so ago with Steve Perry, where he addressed the issue. I listened to it online, maybe Youtube?, so the interview may have been old. At any rate, he said that after a concert in Detroit, he was sitting in his hotel room, very late, working on this song. The room was on a high floor and he was watching the people standing under the lights and pondering their lives ("streetlight people"). While he realized that South Detroit didn't really exist, he used a bit of artistic license, because it flowed better than East Detroit.
• Megan from Stevenson, Al Tell me why this is AMAZING?! lol This song is on a totally different level. Awesome.
• Jim from Long Beach, Ca Great song. South Detroit=Winsor,Ontario,Canada.....
• Jay from St Paul, Mn I listened to a few interviews Steve has given. He said he used South Detroit because it sounded better than North, East or West. He said he didn't realize there was no South Detroit. He jokingly said he found out South Detroit was actually Windsor. As far as streetlight people, he said it's something that he noticed when he looked out of a hotel window. If you Youtube it, you can find the interviews. Very worth while.
• Ken from San Mateo, Ca What a song...Like the Chisox, this also became a tribute song for the 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants! And Journey is from this area, so it makes better sense.
• Bobby from Belleville, Nj While Journey's version is a classic, back in 2008 before it was used in Sopranos, freestyle artist George LaMond remade the song into a pop/dance version. And a very good one, I might add.
• Barry from Sauquoit, Ny Five years before Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" Olivia Newton-John had a completely different record with the same title, it peaked at No. 33...
• Bd from Vienna, Va Probably worth noting in the brouhaha about Journey turning down a cover of this song is that Randy Jackson was in the band for a while in the mid-80s before their first breakup.
• Rob from Fredericton, Nb One of the many anthems most prominiately found in the 80s hall of great music. For every song played on the radio, this one song sticks out the most when I use to go to a carnival in my hometown. With the smell of fries, hotdogs and other foods lingering in the air, you could always hear a Journey tune blaring in the background while everyone enjoyed riding the many rides at this carnival. So when you take an experience, like a carnival, and feature all of it's pleasantries you soon inaugurate any song from the 80s, namely a Journey tune, and the picture is complete. Such a great band and such a great song.
• Sara from Detroit, Mi And for those of you that want to split hairs, Look on the map of Detroit. Melvindale, Ecorse, Lincoln Park, Ecorse, Delray, Allen Park, Southgate, Taylor, River Rouge, Wyandotte. These are all blue collar or very poor areas, and most people worked for the Big 3 auto companies. This area is called "Downriver" as it is south of Detroit. Detroit itself is a pretty small city. What most people think is Detroit is any one of the suburbs that lies within or outside of Detroit's city limits. Oak Park, Hazel Park, Highland Park, and Hamtramck, are all INSIDE the City Limits. Where as Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Southfield, Eastpointe, are OUTSIDE of Detroit's City Limits...yet most people consider it part of the greater metro area. When the word METRO is used by itself all over the country it means DETROIT METRO. We were the first place to use the term "Metro" as a colloquial term for a specific large area, as Detroit was the first city in the country to spread out that fast with that large of a population. The city of Detroit itself, is small.
• Sara from Detroit, Mi You are all VERY WRONG about the South Detroit explanation. To those of us who are FROM Detroit and GREW UP THERE....SOUTH DETROIT IS ANYTHING SOUTH OF I-96...a.k.a "Downriver" ....There has NEVER been a place CALLED South Detroit. It's like being in any big city, the term is more loosely used, than say "South Philly", "South-Central L.A." "Southside Of Chicago". Yes Eastpointe was East Detroit but that has absolutely NOTHING to do with this, you don't see a "West Detroit" on the map do you? As for the lyrics it IS in fact "Streetlights, People". It's amazing how many Americans struggle with their own native language!
• Carrie from Roanoke, Va Petra Haden does a cover version of this song.
• Karen from Manchester, Nh I have loved this song for years...until I heard that it was the closing song on the piece of filth that is titled "The Sopranos".
• Jose from Brisbane, Australia Please tour Australia! I know it's hard because for some reason, Australia never really got into Journey... sad lot we are.
• Nikki from Yamba, Australia greta song... love that it has on family guy.. scrubs... the sapranos... the wedding singer and love when LC and stephen sing it on the second series of laguna beach!
• Ellen from Chicago, Il A great song. See Wikipedia's article (search the song title) for additional details as to what exactly is meant by "South Detroit" - in the section called "Sports".
• Rahul from Chennai, India absolutely beautiful song....
• Stu from Philly, Pa They've been quoted as saying "it's streetlight people, we're talking about prostitutes." At any rate, check the lyrics book that came with the album. One of the greatest songs of all time, it was a real treat to see the cast of Glee perform it on that new TV show. One of the best non-Journey renditions of it. My band Raised On Radio usually starts our sets with this song.
• Mike from Brighton, Ma To answer the age old question, "South Detroit" actually refers Southfield, Michigan. (Southfield, ironcally is north of Detroit.) In the 1980s, Journey played many charity soft ball games with WRIF-FM (The Riff).
• Brendan from Cape Town, South Africa The line after "streetlights, people" sounds like "heaven just a fun emotion" Any other suggestions?
• Allen from Knoxville, Tn On the University Of Tennessee campus, somebody has spray painted on the stop signs "dont STOP believin'" Great song, even 27 years after it was released!
• Katie from St. Paul, Mn The lyrics say "Streetlights, people...", not "Streetlight people".
• Josh from Indianapolis, In Journey Rocks Big Time!!!!!!!!!!!!! thers not a song by them i dont like> Rock on!
• Bob from Dumbsville, Belarus Wow this song is beautiful! Everytime I'm down, I listen to it and it gets me back on my feet again. This song just defines 80s music. Journey will just never be the same without Steve Perry leading their crusade.
• Morten from Sydney, Australia I'm an 80's music tragic but suprisingly had never heard of this song! Thanks to Family Guy for introducing me to this gem! -Morten, Sydney, Australia
• Dean from Windsor, On I would just like to inform all those people who say this song isn't about Windsor. When "South Detroit" is mentioned the city of Windsor is what they are talking about. Windsor is actually SOUTH of Detroit. If your ever around my town and stand at the river your compass will point north. Enjoy!
• Julie from Taylor, Tx When this song comes on...me and best friend victoria go crazy! it's their best song. Classic 80's!
• Melanie from Seattle, Wa Scott from Boston - what a cool story! Haha I want to go write that on a stop sign now! :D This song is sooo good. Journey's best IMO. Steve's voice is amazing.
• Neil from Ottawa, Canada This song was sung by the football team in the 2007 film "The Comebacks". One of the players starts singing it in the change-room, and it turns in to a full-stage concert. It mocks the sports movie cliche of teams turning it around with an uplifting theme song, and also references the Chicago White Sox World Series.
• Liquid Len from Ottawa, Canada What a great song! The only song Journey did in the 80s that wasn't horrid!
• Fredrik from Stockholm, Sweden This song was also featured in the South Park episode "tsst" when Cartman is plugging in his X-Box. He sings the lines "Don't stop believing, hold on to your feelings"
• Krista from Elyria, Oh I love Journey! And I love it when ametuers sing the lyrics! But I HATE baseball cards...
• Scott from Boston, Ma During cross country last year there was a stop sign we always ran by during practice and it said "don't" above it and "believing" below it. It became our team's song and we often sang it very out of tune during runs. Also, that Family Guy episode is awesome (as most are). "Oh my god, that is Journey!"
• Michael from San Diego, Ca One of the most beautiful songs of all time...if this song doesn't get to you, then you may need to check your pulse!
• Richie from Sedalia, Mo Edgar, Kings Park, NY Better luck next time!!
• Edgar from Kings Park, Ny This song reminds me of my failed suicide attempt. Well... there's always next time.
• Brian from Portage, Mi Yes, Detroit is an East/West city, but no matter where an area is, there is still four cardinal directions.
• Brian from Detroit, Mi Anyone from Detroit will know what i am saying, but "south detroit" refers tothe area south of Outer Drive, Detroiters refer to the area as "downriver." i Just want to clear the confusion. It ISINT canada, it ISINT eastpointe, NOR groose pointe.
• Eamon from Motherwell, Scotland THis inspirational song was played every night in a juke by me when I was teaching summer camp in up state New York back in 1980. Being from Scotland, I loved the American rock scene and this classic just typifyies it. 27 years later, I play the Journey live DVD while I work out every other night and never tire of hearing it, it is in my blood. I had the pleasure of seeing Journey in Glasgow earlier this year and it was a real highlight. One question - I have heard different lyrics for this some say "Heaven is a funky mouse?" Any comments guys and girls? Eamon.Motherwell. Scotland.
• Sergio from Miami, Fl I have been listening to this song for a long time now. I grew up listening to it and I admit, its my all time favorite. It is so cool now to see a new generation fall in love with it thanks to Family Guy, Scrubs and Sopranos. I dont think it matters if South Detroit is correct or not cause whenever they performed it live with Steve Perry he always replaced Detroit with the city they were in at the moment. I always thought that was a nice touch and he always got a cheap pop for it. I know I will always love this song and just dont get sick or hearing it. Journey was a fantastic band with some great musicians.
• Mary from Canyon, Tx This song was my junior class song way back when in ancient times, not too long after it was first released. EVen I know Windsor, ON is south of Detroit! (Southeast to be exact.)
• Mark from Glassboro, Nj This song was used in the very end of The Soprano's Final Episode. The song is cut short and the screen goes to blank.
• Missy from Ann Arbor, Mi You may not belive this but 'Don't stop Belivin' was my senior class song...I love it and so did my class...we were a pretty small class and we were all ubsessed with soft and classic rock...the good stuff...Whenever I hear those first few piano keys play, I will alway go back to my high school gym, on a hot june day, walking to the stage to graduate...Good Times, Great Memories and GREAT SONG!!!
• Mike from Hueytown , Al I love the 80's on VH1 ripped this song apart.
• Mark from Des Moines, Ia I can't help but think of the CHICAGO WHITE SOX and their magical run to the World Series title in 2005. What a great season!!! What a great song!!!
• Maria from Houston , Tx I agree with most, his voice is awesome!!!!
• Kara from Cadillac, Mi Artists magic is what happens when you take a group of extraordinarily talented people and put them together, allowing them each to do what they do best. Journey is what happens when it all fits together and creates something wonderful. They're not just a band- they're an era. Neal Schon is with out a doubt one of the most gifted guitarists ever. His knowledge and presentation of his craft are nothing short of brilliant. Steve Perry's vocals are masterful. They, along with Schon's guitar work, gave Journey a distintive sound. Jonathan Cain - a perfect fit, though I admit I've always liked Greg Rolle too. I have a Journey album that was made prior to Steve Perry's joining and listening to that makes me know that Journey would have been great no matter what because they had the talent to be great. I know there were changes in the lineup, but Ross Valory's bass playing was also part of what made Journey what it is to me. I loved Steve Smith on the drums, but as with Rolle, I was sad to see Aynsley Dunbar go. Journey was a concept, a feeling, a part of life, an important accent to memories in my life and continues to contribute to important events in the lives of my kids. Two of my sons play guitar and are greatly influenced by Neal Schon. One of them is currently overseas serving in the millitary- he will marry his high school sweetheart when he returns and their wedding song will be "Open Arms". The two sons that I have at home have recently been getting into Journey - "Generations" and I have found that I love their music now as much as I ever did. It never mattered to me that Steve Perry said "South Detroit" - I lived in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti for many years and I never could keep the suburbs or other offspring areas of Detroit straight anyway. I lived in San Francisco too and always knew that "Lights" was about that city - even if it was written in (or partially in) L.A. - Who cares? Does anybody ever question why "Still They Ride" has traffic lights in it? No. Why? Because it's a truly amazing song about times changing before people are ready for them to with an outstanding guitar lead and excellent vocals. Get over the details. This is legendary music by exceptional musicians. Just enjoy it.
• J from Boston, Ma and I mean (in the last comment) in the chorus part at the end.
• J from Boston, Ma About the streetlight line, I think the first time the line is done, it sort of sounds like streetlight with a little extra sound on it. However, the second time the line is sung, he definetly says streetlights. As the song fades out, I think he says streetlight.
• Jack from London, England Coming from England I had never heard this song on the radio before I heard it on Family Guy. I then heard the song during an episode of Scrubs Season 3 called "My Journey" and decided I had to download it. JOURNEY KICK ASS
• Nathan from From The Country Of, Canada I always heard this song on the radio, but it wasn't until its appearance on Family Guy's kareokee episode that i realized how good the song actually is.
• Peter from Detroit, Mi No matter what, at least once a month I hear this song at the bar. My friends and I are from Dearborn Heights, MI and I like to replace south detroit with "dearborn heights" while belting the lyrics to the annoyance of my girlfriend...she thinks I'm cute so it's cool. Rock on Journey!
• Tom from Vashon, Wa This is an amazing song. It is so sweet. I love it. I think that it has a great message that we can all relate to. Wether we are living on the streets or we are just having problems with our closest friend. You can never stop believing.
• Dave from Beamsville, Canada If you listen closely, you will hear a rendition of this song during the first wedding ceremony on 'The Wedding Singer' when Adam Sandler gets stood up at the alter.
• Allan from Calgary, Canada At The Den (the on-campus bar at the University of Calgary) this song has been the last song every weekend night for the last 10 years. All the regulars drop their pants and do the "no pants dance" Quite a good time and a great way to end the night at a great bar.
• Zeke from Washington, Dc All the lyrics say that the line is "Streetlight, people..." but if you listen to the song it DEFINITELY sings "Streetlights, people." Which do you think it is?
• Kevin from Grosse Pointe, Mi Yeah, but who calls Windsor "South Detroit"? Nobody. I love this song, but that line always bugs me. Why not say "Just a city boy, born and raised in East Detroit" East Detroit is the former name of Easpointe, Michigan. Also, East Detroit is just considered the East side of Metro Detriot, so he could be from the eastern part of the city of Detroit or from any one of the suburbs that is considered East Detroit (Harper Woods, Roseville, Clinton Township, St. Clair Shores)
• Emma from Palm Beach, Australia This song was performed in episode 403 of "The Family Guy" entitled "Don't Make Me Over" (original air date 06/05/05) by Peter, Cleveland, Quagmire and Joe. It's an enjoyable rendition, with pall bearers even dropping a coffin in order to hit "The Drunken Clam" to check out the performance.
• Matt from Haddon Hieghts, Nj This song is great and i got my whole family to love this song its Steve Perrys voice thats just awesome and its one of my fav
• Cindi from Vancouver, Canada OMG WHO care weather it is North, South. East or West it is a great song.....I can think about better things to debate than which way is up, down or left or right....I agree with who ever said there is N,S, E or West every where just get a compass and stand outside this isn't rocket science it's a Rock song.
• Zeke from Washington, Dc Actually, Canada IS south of Detroit. The southern part of Ontario is actually south of Detroit. Check your map Jon from Regina.
• Justin from Monson, Ma I think Journey's song "Don't stop Believin" is the greatest song in the world. I love it so much. Each time it comes on the radio, I turn it up loud. By the way, why does anyone care about how the city of Detroit is used in the song. The song's great!!!!!!!! -Justin Dubois,Monson,MA
• Matthew from East Brunswick, Nj Great song, Journey is a godsend of the 80's!
• Anwiya from Sterling Heights, Mi Hey John from Canada, you know nothing. A portion of Canada (city name: WINDSOR) is south of Detroit.
• Sara Mackenzie from Middle Of Nowhere, Fl white sox have used it for their theme song, omg!! at least it kept them going on to believe that they could win, and they did, so this song is like, an inspiration.
• Christa from Aurora, Il This was the song the white sox used for inspiration to win the world series 2005!
• Jeff from Sothington, Ct this is an inspirational song that has a good guitar part in it...the family guy episode was funny and the fact that i knew this girl that would sing this song and now everytime i hear it i see her singing it..but i still see myslef playing guitar...nice solo though
• David from Yosemite, Ca I heard this song sung a few weeks ago in San Francisco's North Beach--I was trying to sleep in the GreenTortoise hostel in the room above the lounge--and a chorus of girls was singing it. It must have been Kerioki night, but it was lovely. I couldn't recall the group (Journey), but heard a bit on the radio, and googled the lyrics. I've been googling lyrics all weekend--Napster's having free downloads, which brought me here--nice site.. I wish I could have recorded the girls singing. David Yosemite Sept. 4, 2005
• Chase from Pasadena, Ca Most of the memories posted on this website are by a girl named "Stephanie."
• Stephanie from Ellicott City, Md this song brings back some great memories .... reminds me of being just over the edge of 17, vacationing in Florida with my family. we were staying at this resort, and i was hanging out in the game room. i had been pretty bored, and i met this guy about 2 years younger than me. he was from a small town in Maine, while i was from the big city in Maryland. i was grateful to find someone close to my age, and we played airhockey, with us deciding to make a friendly bet, the terms to be determined after the game. he let me win, and the term of the bet was decided to be a kiss. we ended up making out for awhile, and when we parted for the night, we shared no pretense that we'd ever meet again. the next night, i heard this song, and it made me think of him - although it was reversed, he was the small town boy and i was the city girl, for a smile we shared the night, and the memories go on and on. i had been feeling pretty low about myself at this time, and feeling undesirable, and he made me feel like, hey, maybe there is something desirable about me after all. so, Matt from Maine, thank you.
• Ryan from Windsor, Canada Amazing song, one of the best from the 80's. oh and Jon from Regina, check your map bro. I'm from Windsor, Ontario Canada and to go to Detroit I'd have to travel North, not South (one of those "tricky" geography catches).
• Jev from Marietta, Ga Well does anyone know where I can get a good ringtone of this song period.
• Patrick from Charlotte, Nc no.
• Jev from Marietta, Ga Does anybody know where I can get a Don't Stop Believin ringtone that is reliable?
• Jon from Regina, Canada This is a great song. By the way, who really cares if they say South Detroit? It's not the end of the world. And John from Scottsdale, I thought most people knew this, but Canada is NORTH of Detroit, not south.
• Matthew from Marquette, Mi Ok... I don't know how many of you really know Geography, but there is a North, South, East and West of EVERYTHING! There is South America, Southern US, Southern California, South Detroit, my dorm room even has a southern part. While you may not find South Detroit on a map, there is in fact a South Detroit. The guy probably grew up near Michigan Avenue. As for the song... GREAT EFFIN' SONG!
• Tatem from San Diego, Ca No matter the radio station I'm listening to, you can always tell that distinctive Journey-Steve Perry sound and instantly know a Journey song regardless of your knowledge of their song list. Steve Perry gave Journey their uniqueness. I had heard about the Monster movie thing, never saw the movie though. It's hard to believe how old these guys are now. Steve Perry was a hottie. Aging happens to the best of us!!
• Perviz from Cochin, India Words can't describe the kind of feeling you get on hearing this song. Truly a masterpiece!!
• Perviz from Cochin, India This is truly a super duper song. Thanx a million Journey.
• Kevin from Grosse Pointe, Mi Yeah the whole South Detroit thing always bugged me too. Detroit is an East Side/West Side city, not a North Side/South Side city like Chicago. If the lyrics had said "East Detroit" it would have made more sense.
• Ryan from Lansing, Mi There is no East Detroit however as everyone should know, they changed there name to Eastpointe. But yeah he should really have said southren Detroit.
• John from Scottsdale, Az When I ever hear this song, I have to say "you've got it wrong, Steve, and sing "There ain't no such place as South Detroit." I grew up in Detroit. There's an east side and a west side. The dividing line is Woodward Avenue. South Detroit is..uh... Canada. Stand on the plaza in downtown Detroit, and look south. Oh, Canada. Otherwise, I like the song, but Steve and his buddies should hvae stuck to San Francisco or looked at a map
• Tom from Alma, Ga Ack! Another cookie-cutter corporate rock band. Being a child of the 80's, however, they did have some good stuff.
• Dawn from Highlands Ranch, Co Well, Neal Schon, Steve Perry and Jon Cain I think all take credit for the genesis of this song, which probably explains part of why they're not together anymore. But actress Charlize Theron really wanted this song for a scene in her movie Monster, so she and director/writer Patty Jenkins wrote a letter to Steve Perry begging him to allow them to use the song. He saw the scene they wanted it for, said it was perfect, through Sony contacts asked Jon and Neal if they were ok with it, they said yes, and Steve became musical consultant for the film, as well as the song being in the film. Steve is still traveling around the US and Canada with Patty helping her promote the movie and accepting awards for it.
• Mooler from Detroit, Mi Nora hit the nail right on the head. South Detroit is just referring to the southern part of the city just as south west detroit or west side or east side or northeast detroit...etc etc. I should know...im from north east detroit. 7 and gratiot.
• Paul from Greenwood, Sc Just a couple tidbits...in live shows, Journey frontman Steve Perry would insert the name of whatever city that would be hosting them, evidenced by the NFL films documentary of them from the late 80's where they are playing in Philly..."Born and raised in Phil-a-del-phia!"...also the guitar break between the first and second verse spotlights Schon at what he did best. Neil Schon was discovered by Carlos Santana and was playing on stage at the age of 15. He is incredibly fast and it shows on this classic.
• Larry from Artesia, Ca Streetlight people, living just to find emotion Hiding, somewhere in the night
• Angela from Santa Fe, Tx Does anyone know the lyrics to this song? I know most of them, however, there is one line in there where I can't seem to catch all the words. It is right after the line in the chorus "Streetlife people". Can anyone help me? Thanks.
• Nora from Richfield, Mn The lyrics didn't say 'south OF Detroit', it said South Detroit. Big difference

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He Didn't Stop Believin'

By Alex Pappademas

Photography by Andrew Hetherington

arnel pineda, who turns 41 this year, has been performing in bands since he was a teenager, and by now he has mastered virtually every kick-ass lead-singer move known to rock. He can launch his compact body off the drum riser and land without twisting an ankle. He plays excellent microphone-cord air guitar. He knows when to do the reach-out-and-touch with the fans in the front row and when to turn the microphone stand upside down and lift it above his head, as if calling down the lightning. He knows how to do these things because he is a professional lead singer and a good one, which means he is a virtuoso whose instrument is his own charisma. He is also adept at the parts of the lead-singer job that involve singing.

Until recently, the only place you could see Pineda doing any of this stuff was in Manila, where he and his band, the Zoo, appeared regularly at bars and nightclubs, or on the YouTube channel of an industrious Zoo fan named Noel Gomez, who has uploaded more than sixty video clips of the band performing live, usually on stages that resemble discarded sets from early-'90s late-night talk shows. It was thanks to those videos, in which Pineda sings the songs of Deep Purple, the Goo Goo Dolls, Heart, Stryper, Styx, Toto, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Simple Minds, Bryan Adams, Men at Work, the Beatles, and REO Speedwagon, that he wound up here at the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas on a Saturday in early March, playing his first U.S. show as the new lead singer of the legendary '80s rock band Journey.

It's a little after 8 p.m., and we've reached the point in "Any Way You Want It" where lead guitarist Neal Schon, who cofounded Journey in 1973, plays a precise yet impassioned hairspray-torch of a solo. This is Pineda's cue to sidle up to Schon and make your-guitar-playing-is-rocking-me-so-hard faces at him, prompting Schon to make equally ridiculous not-as-hard-as-it's-rocking-me-my-brother faces back. It's the kind of thing singers in arena rock bands have been doing during the guitar break since arenas were invented, and usually it's only entertaining if you know, for example, that the guitarist and the lead singer actually hate each other. But when Pineda does it, it's more than a gesture. He has performed this song live many times before, but he's still getting used to performing it with the band that made it famous, so when he does the grooving-on-the-solo thing, he appears genuinely awed,1 not only by the force of Schon's rocking but by the fact that he, Arnel Pineda, is actually being rocked by Neal Schon. When he turns to the audience—where fans have been waving the Philippine flag and their own homemade banners (arnel for president) in his general direction all night long—the look on his face is equal parts glee and disbelief.

"My life is a fairy tale," Pineda told me earlier. "But I'm awake, and I'm dreaming it."

if you're in a long-running classic-rock band and you find yourself without a lead singer, as Journey did last summer, you have several options, aside from retirement. The minute it's announced that you and your frontman have parted ways, aspirants to the position will begin sending you their CDs, whether or not you have asked for them.

But if you're Journey, at least a few of the innumerable bedroom karaoke-ists, tennis-racket axpersons, and car-dashboard drummers your music has inspired will have gone semipro, forming tribute bands that play your music in a Civil War–reenactment kind of way, which means you've also got a vast pool of ready-on-day-one understudies from which to draw. When Judas Priest made their first album without original lead singer Rob Halford in 1996, they drafted Tim "Ripper" Owens, an Akron office-supply salesman who sang Halford's parts in a Priest tribute band; thanks to the 2001 film Rock Star, in which Mark Wahlberg played an Owens manqué named Chris "Izzy" Cole, this is probably the most famous example of a band calling a singer up from the farm team.

It's a major crossroads, this frontman decision. You can bet on the future by tapping a singer who may have his own thing happening, or you can reinvest in your legacy by recruiting a singer who's been practicing your stuff for years. But when Journey parted ways with frontman Jeff Scott Soto last summer, Neal Schon began to wonder if there was another way to go.

What you need to know here is that the lead-singer slot in Journey has always been a high-turnover position, somewhere between "Mr. Pamela Anderson" and "drummer for Spinal Tap" on the volatility scale. Soto was either the third, fourth, or fifth guy to have the job, depending on whether or not you count keyboardist Gregg Rolie (responsible for some of the vocals on the band's first three albums) or Neal Schon (ditto) or Robert Fleischman (who sang live with the band and cowrote "Wheel in the Sky" but never appeared on a studio album). But as far as Journey's fans are concerned, there is but one true Journey vocalist, and his name is Steve Perry. Before Perry, Journey were a chops-flaunting jazz-rock outfit whose first three albums had sold poorly; when Columbia Records threatened to drop the band, their manager, Herbie Herbert, prevailed upon them to hire Perry, who had a supple tenor, a gawky, earnest stage presence, and one of the worst haircuts in rock. Together, he and Journey began writing new songs that showcased two of these three qualities, and by the turn of the decade they'd become one of the biggest bands on earth.

Sometimes pop songs are poetry, and sometimes they're art, and sometimes they're poetry transformed into art and written in airbrush on acid-washed denim. During the Perry years, Journey sang about dreamers on the run, about summer nights, about the lonely road. They once rhymed "walkin' a high wire" with "caught in a cross fire." They made videos so singularly ill-conceived—like "Separate Ways," which is clearly supposed to take place in the kind of gritty urban environment where one might find oneself caught in a cross fire while walking on a high wire but appears to have actually been filmed in the parking lot of an Ikea—that they now resemble_ Flight of the Conchords_ skits. Pete Townshend once said, "If you steer clear of quality, you're all right," but Journey played everything with an aerobic professionalism that suggested that quality was Job One. Most rock critics despised them; they were frequently lumped in with Styx and Foreigner and characterized as "faceless," an allegation the members of Journey say they neither appreciated nor understood.

By Chris Black

By John Del Signore

They were never cool, and they were never dangerous. Cool, dangerous bands advocated the use of drugs, or at least testified to their allure; Journey signed a then groundbreaking endorsement deal with Budweiser and once arrived at a St. Louis gig in a carriage pulled by the brewer's iconic team of Clydesdales. Cool, dangerous bands lured their fans to the dark side using satanic iconography; Journey tempted their fans into arcades to pump quarters into Bally Midway's Journey video game.2 Cool, dangerous bands made parents nervous; any kid who tried to rebel by cranking the soaring and saccharine sounds of Frontiers or Escape deserved to be laughed at through his or her bedroom door (and sat down by an elder sibling for a stern talking-to about the greatness of Black Sabbath).3

But for about a decade, they could basically do no wrong in the eyes of the record-buying public, who fell hard for future classic-rock radio staples like the shamelessly inspirational "Don't Stop Believin'," the shamelessly sentimental "Faithfully," and the shamelessly self-explanatory "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'." 4 Cool, dangerous bands are rarely accessible; Journey wanted to speak to as many people as possible. It didn't matter what kind of car you drove; if you'd ever wished it were a Trans Am, Journey were singing to you. Between 1978 and 1986, every record they made went platinum.

In 1984, Perry made a solo album, _Street Talk, _which spawned the hit singles "Foolish Heart" and "Oh Sherrie"; Schon says its success put a strain on Perry's relationship with the rest of the band. Perry returned to the Journey fold to make one more record, _Raised on Radio, _before taking an indefinite hiatus in 1987, citing vocal and emotional burnout. Journey didn't play together again until 1995. They made a comeback album, Trial by Fire, and scheduled a reunion tour; then Perry injured his hip on a hike in Hawaii. He needed to replace the hip in order to play live, but put off getting the surgery; Schon says the band waited until they couldn't wait anymore. The next time Journey toured, their singer was Brooklyn-born Steve Augeri. He took flak from hard-core fans for sounding too much like Steve Perry, and then he stepped aside, citing a chronic throat infection, and handed the mike to Jeff Scott Soto, who took flak for not sounding Perryish enough. A subtext was developing: Journey's fans felt that no one other than Steve Perry was fit to sing Journey songs in the shower, let alone onstage.

In conversation, the members of Journey jokingly refer to Steve Perry as "He Who Cannot Be Named," like the evil wizard in the Harry Potter books. Later, I ask Schon about this, after reading an interview with their former manager in which it is alleged that Journey are somehow legally enjoined from speaking on the record about Perry.

"Oh, y'know," Schon says. "There's no legal issue. We just try not to. I mean, I didn't say anything inflammatory. I didn't talk about how he still gets paid like a motherfucker even though he shouldn't be. It's stuff like that I'm not allowed to talk about. He sorta just bitches and moans and whines about everything. And he just assumes that every time we bring up his name, that we're sayin' bad things."

no one in journey was excited about auditioning new singers, and none of the tribute-band Steves they looked at seemed like the answer. "I didn't think they had anything new to offer," Schon says, "other than making us a nostalgia act, and I wasn't interested in that."

Instead, Schon says, "I sat in my house for a couple days, hoping the almighty Internet would bring some relief."

He trawled YouTube, looking at all the live footage of male rock vocalists he could find. "You never know what you're getting on a CD," Schon says. "It can be all doctored in Pro Tools. You never know if somebody can sing unless you're watching something live." He found a few singers with potential—a couple of guys in England, doing "a Justin Timberlake–type thing." And then he stumbled on Noel Gomez's Zoo videos.

There are a few clips on YouTube of Pineda singing Journey songs like "Faithfully." His Steve Perry is almost eerily flawless; he nails both Perry's girlish quaver and the grit and pacing Perry borrowed from soul singers like Sam Cooke, and the fact that you can occasionally hear his accent makes the rest of the performance that much more uncanny. But Schon insists that what grabbed him about Pineda was his range. He slam-dunked Survivor. He tore up Toto. He made something out of "Makin' Love out of Nothing at All," and—spoiler alert—what he made out of it was love .

"The hair stood up on my arms," Schon says. "I got up off the computer and told my girlfriend, 'No way—this guy sounds too good. I don't believe it.' "

He went for a motorcycle ride. Thus are important rock-star decisions made. When he got back, he watched the clips again. Then he started calling his band. "I said, 'I found the singer,' " Schon says. "And they go, 'Where is he' And I'm like, 'He's in Manila!'

"And they go, 'Great—so you found a singer who can't speak English.' "

pineda's english is actually fine.

Right now he is trying to save his voice for tomorrow's show, so he speaks softly, which makes him seem as if he's in a state of perpetual awe (and maybe he is).

Pineda may have the most Dickensian backstory in rock history. His mother died when he was 13; his father took Pineda's siblings to live with relatives, and Pineda struck out on his own. He collected scrap metal, bottles, and old newspapers, usually bringing home the equivalent of thirty cents a day. Sometimes he'd sleep at a friend's house; more often than not, he'd sleep in Manila's Luneta Park, alone or with a group of other homeless kids. They drank from a fountain there and bathed in it, too; most mornings, Pineda would wake up sick from the dew. ("All clogged here," he says, pressing two fingers to his sinuses.)

His friend Monet Cajipe played guitar. Sometimes when Pineda wasn't working, he'd go over to Monet's house and they'd sing songs together. "He would bring me to his family," Pineda says, "and say, 'Come on, give some food to my friend,' because I was starving. They would make me sing, and then they would feed me. They would just bribe me with food."

At 15, Pineda tried out for a group called Ijos Band. He'd never sung with a real band before; during the audition, his voice was strong but his timing was weak. The bandleader saw something in him anyway, and when the other members of Ijos groused about having to split their nightly take with an extra man, one of the bandleader's friends came to the rescue, offering to pay Arnel's salary—thirty-five pesos a night—out of his own pocket. Perks of the job included a tiny room under the guitarist's front stairs, where Pineda could sleep.

He went on to cofound a band called Amo, which evolved into a band called New Age, featuring Cajipe on guitar. Like many Filipino bands, they played a mix of original material and covers of American and British rock and pop. While the U.S. occupation shaped Filipino musical culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Philippines truly became a cover-band nation in the '60s, when the islands served as a way station for troops en route to or from the Vietnam War and every nightclub needed bands who could entertain American servicemen with Top 40 rock 'n' roll. To this day, Pineda says, "if you only play original songs, [audiences in the Philippines] will not appreciate you 100 percent. They want to hear you singing other bands' songs that made it to number one. Like Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Journey."

In the early '90s, New Age relocated to Hong Kong, a time-honored path for -Filipino musicians seeking their fortune. It didn't go so well. Playing the same cover tunes every night began to drive Pineda crazy. He was bored, so he drank, took drugs, and generally pursued any and all forms of rock 'n' roll self-destruction available to a boy from Manila adrift on the Hong Kong bar circuit. Before long, he'd wrecked his voice. When he found he could no longer hit the high notes in Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight," he went to a doctor, who told him to retire. He was 27.

"He said, 'You're finished. Your vocal is just done,' " Pineda says. "I did not believe him. I told myself, I can get it back."

He returned to the Philippines, got straight, learned to sing again. He recorded a self-titled solo album in 2000; he and Cajipe started the Zoo. They recorded their first album,_ Zoology_. For a man who'd been told he'd never sing again, it was a happy enough ending. Then, last summer, the phone rang.

When Pineda went to get his visa, the guy who interviewed him at the embassy—"His name is Ben. I can't forget his name," Pineda says—was a fan who'd seen him play with the Zoo a couple of times, so Pineda took a request, and everybody in the office looked up from their desks at the guy singing "Wheel in the Sky."

He flew to San Francisco, spent a day jamming with the band at their rehearsal space. He hadn't slept much on the flight over, so his voice kept cracking, and he assumed he'd blown it, but he almost didn't care. He'd come to America and sung with a band he'd loved since he was 12 years old. He'd shot some home movies of them on his camcorder—a YouTube-able epilogue to his crazy YouTube adventure. He was ready to settle for that. But that jam session led to a long day in the studio, where Pineda sang two new songs and four or five of the Dirty Dozen—nailing most of them in one take—and by the time it was over, he'd passed the audition.

"Arnel cared about getting it right," band member Jonathan Cain says. "There wasn't this arrogance—the Lead Singer Disease that so many guys have when they have fantastic voices."

let us consider the New Guy.

In life, the New Guy gets the office that was once a closet full of printer paper, or maybe still is; the New Guy is told about bogus traditions involving the New Guy picking up the lunch tab; the New Guy spends a lot of time wondering what's so funny.

The New Guy's phone rings, but it's not for him. He disappoints people just by picking it up. _No, I'm sorry—he's not here anymore. Is there something I can help you with _

In rock, being the New Guy is the same, except harder. The jokes you don't know go back to some long, snowy between-concerts bus ride circa 1984. And you're trying to inhabit a stadium-sized myth, not a cubicle. You might win over a few late-to-the-party fans, but your presence alone will always be proof to some people that the band has outlived its awesomeness. A band with a New Guy on vocals is like a late-period Happy Days episode, one of the ones where nobody's left except Ted McGinley and a middle-aged Fonz who can barely zip the leather jacket. And because the only way for a band in this position to shake off the taint of the glue factory is to reunite with its original singer, the New Guy in a rock band is always a dead man rocking.

Tim Owens got seven years with Judas Priest before Rob Halford returned. Anyone not named David Lee Roth who agrees to sing for Van Halen is basically keeping the leather pants warm for Diamond Dave. And however comfortable Pineda's been made to feel during the past few months, he must know on some level that Steve Augeri and Jeff Soto once felt comfortable, too. Toward the end of our interview, as dusk bleaches the color from the desert outside the window, I ask him if he's thought about how long this is going to last.

"Well, of course," he says. "Of course I did. I'm a very realistic person. I like to plan. I like to see the future. If I'm lucky, if I'm still strong, I want to be with them for the next three years. And if they still like me after that, I still want to be with them. And hopefully we will create new Journey music that people will love."

And at some point, I suggest, you'll become essential. People will say Journey without Arnel, who wants that

"I just want to be a part of a band that will be able to reinvent themselves, you know" Pineda says. "And I think they will be able to help me build a future, with my family. They will help me financially. They can help me with that. Because all of us need a good future for our children, for our families."

It's true, we do. The members of Journey talk about Pineda like he's given them their youth back, the way thrice-married men talk about the young wives who've got them doing wheatgrass shots and yoga, listening to the Killers. It's never too late to feel like you're going to live forever. "I think we're reborn, right now, with Arnel," Schon says.

He talks about the band's first show with Pineda in Chile, how Arnel was all over the stage, jumping around, surprising everyone, and making Schon—who's playing a cordless guitar for the first time since the '80s—feel the need to step his game up. "I'm gonna be riding my bicycle a lot, and skating," he says, "and getting myself in tip-top shape so I can keep up with this little guy."

When Journey were off the road last year, during the gap between singers, it gave Schon time to get sober. When we talk, it's been nine months. "I believe I was a functioning alcoholic," he says—he'd stay straight for shows but kill a bottle of vodka on the tour bus afterward, and that went on for years. So this moment is also a rebirth for Schon; he's facing all of it straight for the first time. "I feel like I have 100 percent of myself here," he says, "and I'm really excited about getting out there and being completely in control."

Pineda's arrival lets them zero out the odometer. "Had I known Arnel was around fifteen years ago," Schon says, "singing even better than he is now—Goddammit, I would have called him!"

journey may not want to be thought of as a nostalgia act. But they are clearly totally fine with being an act that benefits from nostalgia. When I ask Cain why people still care about Journey in 2008, his response is basically a definition of the term:

"It's music they grew up to," he says. "Fell in love with. Had sex with. Got married to. Graduated from high school or college with. It's a moment frozen in time, and when they remember those moments, they remember those songs. Y'know, the '70s and '80s were awesome times. There was a lot less trouble in the world. And it's like people wanna go back to that simpler place and time. We see these housewives—they used to come to our shows when they were teenagers, and now it's like The Big Chill. They come back, they get a room, and they come see Journey. And I see 'em in the bars and buy 'em a drink and talk to 'em. Or there'll be a daughter that's bringing her mom to a Journey show as a birthday present, because she didn't get to see us back then. And you're like, 'Oh my God—I'm part of this.' "

How Journey's fan base will respond to the band's new incarnation is another question. Journey's new album, Revelation, will be available in June, exclusively at Wal-Mart. In this regard, they're following in the footsteps of the Eagles, who've sold 2.9 million copies of their album Long Road out of Eden through the big-box retailer since last October.

The album package will consist of a CD featuring eleven new Journey songs with Pineda on vocals, a DVD of the Planet Hollywood show, and a third disc featuring Pineda-sung rerecordings of eleven Journey classics whose original iterations featured you-know-who. Depending on how you look at it, this rewrite of the band's history is either a huge vote of confidence for Pineda or the rock 'n' roll equivalent of trying to prove to yourself that you're over your ex-girlfriend by dating a woman who looks exactly like her. And it's a move guaranteed to piss off more than a few Journey fans—even the album's producer, Kevin Shirley, compares it to "roxing the Holy Grail."5

I get a hint of the backlash that may be on the way when, a week or so before the Vegas show, I post a thread on the Journey message board at Melodicrock.com, an Internet forum for people with strong opinions about power balladry and Night Ranger side projects. I ask people to tell me their Journey stories; I ask people what they think of Pineda. I give out my e-mail address. Within minutes, my in-box fills up with e-mails—angry, passionate e-mails.

I hear from a few thick-and-thin super-fans, from plenty of reasonable people ready to give Arnel a fair shake, and even a few early Pineda converts. But I also hear from people frustrated by the band's -inability to hold on to a lead singer and from people who resent the band for continuing on at all. But mostly, I hear from people who have not stopped believing in Steve Perry. They compare him to Elvis, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, and God. They describe the post-Perry band as "a second-class rendition of Journey." They send me all-caps e-mails—Steve Perry really brings out the caps-lock in people—that begin "IT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOU ARE LOOKING TO WRIGHT AN ARTICLE ABOUT WHY JOURNEY IS NO LONGER JOURNEY BUT NOTHING MORE THEN A TRIBUTE BAND TO THE BEST SOFT ROCK BAND EVER." They send me photomosaics of Steve Perry created out of many, many tiny little pictures of Steve Perry.

"You want to know why the 'fascination' with Journey all of a sudden" writes Thomas Cordea of Fort Wayne, Indiana. "With the hiring of a blatant 'sound-alike' singer, the world is 're-awakening' to the fact that THEY MISS STEVE PERRY LIKE MAD.… That is the real 'hidden' storyline of your article, not this latest frontman hire."

Maybe. But this latest frontman hire still seems like the first smart move Journey have made in years. They've got a guy who can sing the Perry material on tour. They're excited about making new music with him. And the fact that they discovered Pineda on YouTube has given them a ready-made PR hook. In a clicky, viral, cell-phone-delivered media moment where even the twice-weekly cult-of-the-amateur hour that is _American Idol _seems like a rusty piece of star-making machinery and Simon Cowell like a snooty gatekeeper, Journey—Journey!—seem like innovators, in touch with the forces shaping the culture. For a band prominently featured in people's memories of the Carter administration, this is pretty impressive.

This doesn't change the fact that they're Journey —emblematic of the way '70s rock betrayed the '60s in the '80s, part of the problem that punk's loogie-hawking historical rebuke supposedly solved. The middleman-eliminating YouTube story line can't make them cool; neither can the existence of a Journey-branded "Virtual Island" in the online nerdiverse Second Life. But coolness accrues in unexpected ways; once-verboten things slip out of cultural jail under cover of irony.

five signs the journey revival is imminent or possibly already here, in descending order of cultural impact:

1. David Chase uses "Don't Stop Believin'" in the last scene of the last episode of The Sopranos. It either is or isn't the last song Tony Soprano ever hears. (A week after the episode airs, Hillary and la famiglia Clinton parody this scene, right down to the onion rings, in a viral-video campaign ad.)

2. Drolly doleful indie rockers—Badly Drawn Boy, Of Montreal—begin slipping ironic-but-maybe-sincere "Don't Stop Believin'" covers into their live sets. Kanye West does, too—at the shows he played in Europe shortly after his mother's death, it often followed "Hey Mama," the one he couldn't get through without crying.

3. Literate classic-rock obsessive Craig Finn and his Brooklyn-via-Minnesota meta–bar band, the Hold Steady, reference Journey in song: My name is Steve Perry, but people call me Circuit City.… My name's Neal Schon, but people call me Nina Simone.

4. Petra Haden, formerly of the late, lamented three-girls-and-a-guy alt-rock band that dog., records an a cappella cover of "Don't Stop Believin'." Haden: "My favorite part is singing that guitar solo. I always end up laughing at the end. I shouldn't, because it's supposed to be so serious. But I always do."

5. Some aspiring George Romero with access to a camcorder and a backyard uploads a no-budget horror short called "Journey of the Dead" to YouTube. Synopsis: "Steve Perry (former lead singer of Journey) saves a Rock and Roll loving couple from an attack by Rock Star Drummer Zombies. After a violent and bloody battle with the zombies, Steve Perry emerges victorious (as always) and then finds himself engaged in a karate showdown with the ultimate evil lead singer mastermind, Freddie Mercury!" Best quote: "Hey, zombie-breath—you picked the wrong day to not be dead! Now you're going to have to face Steve Perry!"

tapping somebody who can do Perry as well as Pineda can may indicate that the band want that uncomplicated approval they got from their audience during the Perry years, as opposed to the problematic tough love they're getting now. Or maybe Neal Schon—who started Journey, spent years building an audience through tireless touring (traveling, in the early days, in four-door station wagons, rolling into the venue just in time to jump onstage and play—who says Journey weren't punk) before having Perry foisted upon him in 1977 for reasons of commercial expediency, and has spent the post-Perry years being accused of sacrilege for daring to continue playing in the band he founded in the first place—wants to prove that it is he and his bandmates who make it Journey.

But when I ask Schon if he's at all tired of Journey being defined by Perry's presence or absence, he answers, "Um, no. I think he contributed so much to the sound of the band. Those songs are gonna be embedded in everybody's heads and hearts forever."

I get a slightly different take from Steve Perry, who calls from his home near San -Diego. Perry, who's finally started working on his first album of new material since leaving Journey, doesn't want to talk about the vocalists who've followed in his footsteps, Pineda included. "I only know that they've been through three guys," he says, "and I've never heard any of them. I stay away from it, because it's really none of my business now. We have children together, which are the songs we wrote, but that's about all."

But he will talk about what it was like when he joined a Journey already in progress in 1977, shedding a little light on what it might feel like to be Pineda now. "You've got to remember, they didn't want to make it with a lead singer," he says. "They wanted to make it without one."

I ask him about the scene in VH1's Journey_ Behind the Music _episode in which Perry declares that he "never really felt like part of the band." Was that because Schon resented having to hire a frontman

"What that meant," Perry says, "was that there was a period of time where I always felt that I had to prove myself. But along with that, you have to print that I can't blame them. It was [Neal's] band. Herbie Herbert built that band around Neal because he's a star on his own, from a guitar standpoint. There's nobody who plays like Neal Schon, to this day. I still miss his playing. We don't get along, but I love his playing.

"They wanted to make it on their own goalposts that they had in mind. There's nothing wrong with that. And I hope you print that, because it's important that people know that. I'm not bitchin'. I'm not whining. I completely understand how they felt and why."

the security people at the Planet Hollywood show—even the women—have the hired-muscle intimidation factor of pit bosses. For all I know, they are pit bosses. But at the end of the Planet Hollywood show, when Journey come back out to redo a couple of songs for the DVD—"We have to do one of the new ones again," Schon says cheerfully, "because we fucked it up!"6—the crowd-control policy is relad and people are allowed to come down the floor-seat aisles and up to the stage to scream and clutch at Pineda, presumably because this will make the show look more exciting on-camera. Someone hands him up a tiny Philippine flag on a wooden stand, the kind a diplomat keeps on his desk, and he stares at it for what counts, in rock-show time, as a long moment, before handing it back.

The do-overs end the night with a sort of anticlimactic thud, but overall it's been a good show, particularly for Pineda. Almost half the crowd—and this is an unscientific estimate based on what the nonwhite people looked like when I turned around—appeared to be Filipino, and from the first note he sang, they were his. And while none of the new Journey songs will make anybody forget "Don't Stop Believin'"—as always, the words "Here's another one from the new album" are the classic-rock-show audience's cue for a bathroom break—some of them are pretty affecting.

Kevin Shirley described "After All These Years" to me as "like 'Faithfully: Part 2'—it's a gem," and it kind of is. Like "Faithfully" (Journey's greatest gift to wedding DJs), it's a soaring, soulful ballad, readable as both a pledge of eternal fealty and a love letter to the fans. But the "all these years" theme adds the weight of long-term commitment to the mix; a song like this is how you tell your audience you'd marry them all over again. And while it's not anywhere near as good as "Faithfully," you can imagine it someday becoming part of the canon. Someday it will be performed by a singer in a smoky room—some Hong Kong piano bar, maybe—and traveling salesmen far from hearth and home will shed a tear or two, and maybe that's all that matters.

Afterward, there's a bottleneck in the lobby of the theater. As everyone shuffles slowly toward the doors that lead to the mezzanine above the casino, someone in the crowd starts singing the Nah nah, na nah nah / Na na na nah nah refrain from "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'," the last song of the night. (It's the one song in Journey's catalog where you can most clearly hear the Sam Cooke mannerisms in Steve Perry's delivery, and Pineda nailed it—an Asian guy imitating a white Californian imitating a black guy from Chicago, on a stage in a Las Vegas hotel with "Hollywood" in the name. The mind reels.)

Then, as if the air-conditioning has started pumping karaoke spores, other people join in and start singing Nah nah, na nah nah / Na na na nah nah, too. It only lasts for a few seconds, but those seconds are maybe the most sincere moment of community I've experienced at a rock show in a long, long time—and they feel like proof that the Pineda-fronted version of Journey has succeeded in giving people the kind of life-affirming Journey experience they were looking for.

Later there's a VIP meet-and-greet in a high-ceilinged Planet Hollywood banquet room. Trickling in like they've timed their entrances, the band pose for pictures and sign T-shirts, albums, ticket stubs. The energy is a little flat until Arnel appears, wearing a shiny long-sleeve T-shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. People immediately crowd around him, waving digital cameras; somebody shouts, "Move back, move back!" He makes it to the other side of the room, still swarmed by fans—many of them Filipino, many of them girls. I try to ask Arnel a couple of questions about the show, which yields a brief interview, reproduced here in its entirety:

Q. How's it going, Arnel A. Hey, man!

Then someone else gets his attention and he's off, posing for another photo. Instead, I interview Patty Zaragoza, who's a flight attendant "representing the Cathay Pacific cabin crew." She doesn't know much about Journey, but she's a fan of Pineda's—she used to see him perform in Hong Kong, at a bar called Grammy's. She gives me a blue Cathay Pacific lanyard, in case the one that came with my Journey backstage pass ceases to function. I turn around to try to get another word or two with Pineda, but he's mobbed. The crowd swallows him. He is, at least for now, a rock star.

the day before the show, I ask Kevin Shirley if he feels Pineda has fully processed everything that's happened to him during the past few months.

"No," Shirley says. "No, I don't think he has. I think the record needs to come out. I think he needs to go on tour. I think he still has a lot of fear about whether he can play this set every night. But he can. I feel very confident. But yeah—once all that settles in, and maybe once he gets his first royalty check. In the meantime, it's like, 'Can you buy me a sandwich I'm the lead singer of Journey!' "

alex pappademas is a GQ staff writer.

What does Don't Stop Believin' mean?

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Journey : Don't Stop Believin' Meaning

Song Released: 1981

Covered by: glee cast, don't stop believin' lyrics, 1 top rated.

This is a powerful song that is wonderfully vague. It is the tapestry of life, good or bad. Open your eyes to what’s out there but don’t let what’s out there hold you back. The first two verses are about a boy & girl (it can happen to anyone) who ramble “anywhere” searching for something missing in their life. The beauty of the first verse is either or both people could also be trying to escaping from something. The train suggests both sought to move fast and far. It’s midnight and so you’d think that if they had a car, it would be easier to drive. No, the train was by choice or lack of alternatives. What goes through each one’s head on that silver bullet. Are they staring blindly out a window, are they sad, hopeful, numb? The singer in a smoke’ room that is dominated more by wine and cheap perfume suggests a club of sorts. (This is not a brothel: There is a singer, wine and the flow of lyrics does not take us there … yet). This is a club where “they” (boy & girl) can spend a night (time, not necessarily more) and get to (or from) what they sought when entering the midnight train. It’s easy to picture romance, but neither love nor sex are mentioned. Perhaps it is simply to seek companionship or escape. Nothing happens unless one (or both) pays (“for a smile”) by reaching out to a stranger in a strange land. This is no small cost: We can assume neither is local to the club and neither know if the other one is a local to the area. With a singer on stage, neither knows if the other is here for the show, with someone else (friends or lover) or even interested in “sharing the night”. There is a fusion of horizons between lyrics and listener where the listener interprets. Best of all, we don’t even know if boy and girl “share the night”! The chemistry is there but is that enough? We've all gone home from the midnight hour regretting not having paid the smile. Pan the camera out and these are just two of many (It goes on and on and on …) The third verse expands on the theme of anyone, anywhere, and in the dark of night. This is to be a world of the ones that are restless and cannot or will not sleep. Like the boy and girl, there are numerous strangers along the avenue of life, waiting to run to or run from “it”. Their long, searching shadows reinforce anonymity. These strangers are abundant, seeking, yet void of detection. Is this a gentle hand saying that it’s okay to be behind one of these shadows (you are one of many) or a call to join their ranks (leave the small town or city)? Perhaps it’s an urging to seek out the shadows, for these night dwellers (living in the hour of the streetlight) also seek emotion (like the boy and girl). Again we can imagine the scale of emotions that rule the midnight hour ranging from romance to rage to depression and so on. The singer (Perry?) steps into the fourth verse and, yes, even he seeks a thrill. The thrill is the midnight train that takes the streetlight person to (or from) his/her emotional destination. Do not be lulled into thinking that the thrill is positive. The players in this game will do anything (hop on any train) to get the emotion. The reference to rolling dice slices open the underbelly of this world and shatters illusions of a universe comprised of country girl meeting city boy. This is a subterranean layer that lurks below the verse-three avenue. It smacks of uncontrolled servitude to gambling, drugs, prostitution or any other extreme. This is life and we are all in the game. The outcome may be black or white but there are other sad variations. There are no happy endings and no clean finish. Pan the camera out again and there is a history to this film that was here before us and will be here long after we are gone (it goes on and on and on …). As we shrink in horror (or weep or rebel or vent or delight, etc.) at the realization of this sad story that is life, the song commands us to not forget the boy and girl. Ride the train and seek the emotion. Take a chance and live with no regrets. Those are my two thoughts. It’s midnight & I’m late for a train, Independent Thinker

2 TOP RATED

Everyone goes through rough times. nobody has a smile on their face 24/7. people get depressed. and sometimes we feel like there's no way out, or we're doomed for life. while being depressed, maybe sometimes people are afraid of being hopeful again, only to be let down. They may think its doing more harm than good to dream of better days. but this song is telling us to 'hold on to that feeling' because life is never short of opportunities to find happiness. There's other people surrounding us, and love can be found in the most unexpected places. There's so many places that happiness can be found, too. They can range from a town on the countryside, the big city, in a deserted area, or even around the corner of where our home is. don't stop believing because this world contains a lot of sadness, but also an infinite amount of opportunities, happiness, and love.

3 TOP RATED

Never Stop Believing I have often wondered what it is that makes a song “good.” I can still recall the day vividly, over six years ago, as I rummaged through a box of old music tapes, hoping to find something fascinating to cure my boredom. My eyes alighted on a tape with the label “Journey: Don’t Stop Believin’” Interestedly, I picked it up and placed it in the cassette player. Smiling, I knew that at that moment my life was eternally changed because of it. The song, “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey has inspired two generations, which is astounding, and is sure to inspire more generations to come. Originally written by Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathon Cain, it is still topping charts nearly 30 years after its debut, and has since been heard on such hit shows and movies as: “American Idol,” “The Sopranos” “The Wedding Singer” “Bedtime Stories” “Scrubs,” “Shrek the Halls,” “Glee,” and many others. The question however, is, why? Why has it become so admired? ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ follows a strange pattern; the renowned chorus is not heard until over three quarters of the way through the song, certainly proving false the saying “Don’t bore us - get to the chorus.” It would seem that while this may prove that saying false, critics still conjecture at how the song became so popular. Los Angeles Times said of the song, “Structurally, it’s a mess. Surely one would get tossed out of songwriting school for a tune that follows its opening piano riff with a verse, a guitar arpeggio, a second verse, a bridge, a guitar solo, a third verse, a repeat of the bridge, another guitar solo, and then, 3 minutes, 20 seconds in, when the song is ready to fade out, one of the most unforgettable choruses in rock.” And yet, despite the strange structure, the song remains one of the most listened to song on iTunes. The song opens up with one of the most unforgettable keyboard riffs in the history of rock; easily distinguishing the song from any other. Vocalist Steve Perry, who has been listed in Rolling Stone’s “Top 100 Greatest Singers of All Time” because of his incredible range from high to low, begins to melodiously sing the words, Just a small town girl, Livin’ in a lonely world She took the midnight train going anywhere Just a city boy, Born and raised in South Detroit He took the midnight train going anywhere Inside these first two stanzas alone the song appeals to the average American youth. Steve Perry said in an interview that he believed that the reason for this was because of the need of all people to break free from the bonds that hold them to their everyday lives, and to explore places they have never been before. It was that determining factor that surprisingly convinced the makers of “Glee” to use the song on their superbly stunning show. When these opening lines lead into the “pre-chorus” or, “bridge” of the song as it has been dubbed by Journey, it gets even more chilling in the hearts of youth and adults alike who listen to it. “Strangers, waitin’, up and down the boulevard, Their shadows, searchin’ in the night Streetlight people, livin’ just to find emotion Hidin’, somewhere in the night Listeners are often stunned. This “pre-chorus” as it has been dubbed by the band, speaks volumes for not only the middle-lower class, but for all mankind. Because it is a fact that there is not a single person on Earth; whether they be Oprah Winfrey or Gandhi himself, who has not at one point or another felt lost in the world around them. They may look outwardly confident, but on the inside, their shadows hunt blindly for some kind of answer to their current predicament. Inside reality, everyone has at one point or another felt this in their lives; especially young people because of the challenges they have not yet learned to face. Thusly there is even more appeal to the song that, since becoming available for download, has had over 3,000,000 downloads, (far greater than the population of Utah.) After a moment we are ripped from our thoughts on this subject and thrust into another revealing verse as Steve Perry continues with this ballad. He continues to stun. Working hard to get my fill, Everybody wants a thrill, Paying anything to roll the dice, Just one more time Some will win, Some will lose, Some were born to sing the blues, Oh the movie never ends, It goes on and on and on and on Everyone takes risks. It’s only human. It’s our disadvantage. Everyone labors to get by in this cruel world, and yet we still “want a thrill,” we still need to keep searching for that reason to live. Occasionally we might be struck down in a philosophical sense, but that’s life, there aren’t always happy endings because in reality there are no “endings.” Life goes on, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it; you can only keep on living. This verse speaks, like so many Journey songs, about everyday people who are just trying to get along in the world as they live. It speaks of the overlooked part of world culture, the part in the shadows that works every day just to survive. Finally, after another bout of the “pre-chorus” Journey finally thrusts down to the heart and principle of the song with their final “chorus.” The band knew immediately that the verse and song were both something exceptional because of the way they felt as they sang it. Talking about it, Jonathon Cain, who was the keyboardist and background vocalist at the time, said of the last chorus while in an interview, “We knew we wanted to save it. It's like a wave about to happen -- the anticipation of something happening, a change in your life." Don’t stop believin’ Hold on to that feeling Streetlight people Don’t stop believin’ Shocking everyone, the final words, “Don’t stop believing” chime out loud and proud as the song slowly fades out. According to many people’s interpretations, mine included, Journey is speaking to the “streetlight people” and telling them to never give up hope; even when they may not know what to do; even when they’re lost and the going is tough; even when they’re afraid to venture out from their, “streetlight” to visit the dark unknown abyss beyond. Only because of examples in our culture like this do people who need it are inspired to continue on with their lives, although they may at times not feel the slightest desire to. Finally the question must again be thrust forward. Why is it that “Don’t Stop Believin’” has become so admired? The song that was adopted as the Chicago White Sox’s Theme Song that they played if they were down points; and they claim caused their victory at the World Series. The song that became the most downloaded song of the 20th century. The song that children, teens, and adults alike still rock out to nearly thirty years after its release in 1981. The answer is simple. Don’t Stop Believin’ appeals to the soul of all mankind, the part of the soul that constantly yearns not only for an answer, but for love, and comfort as well. Besieging us is overwhelming evidence that “Don’t Stop Believin’” has become a solid foundation that men and women around the world who never stop believing can lean on to alleviate their fears when they’re afraid, to lift them up when they’re down, and to guide them if ever they are lost. And it’s all possible because they will never stop believing.

It is about a girl and a boy, who meet up, and that's when they realize that all hope is not lost. You should never stop believing, no matter what life throws at you, don't give up (hope).

Don’t stop believing is about a boy and a girl who are trying to get through a rough relationship with each other, but they manage to get back together.

Don't stop believing. Maybe you haven't found your soulmate, or the perfect job. Maybe you haven't yet aspired to your goals. But life is all about 'getting that thrill' it's time to talk to that person you see across the room, the person that your heart is practically dragging you towards. It's time to submit your resume to that huge business empire you've dreamed of working for, even though you (think) know that you barely have a chance of getting an interview. Maybe it's time to stop hoping and wishing that you can complete your goals, and start making them happen. 'Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time' Maybe that guy across the room is absolutely wonderful and there's an instant connection, and someday in the future you'll marry him. Or maybe he's a jerk and you wish you could go back in time simply because you wasted your breath on that loser. Or maybe, just before you get to this guy, you bump into a different one. Maybe that huge company will look at your résumé and be BLOWN AWAY, or maybe they will take a single glance at your résumé and toss it in the trash. Or what if, somehow your résumé gets mixed up, and ups at a different company, and you get an interview there. Maybe all your dreams, hopes, goals will come true. Maybe they won't. Or maybe, while trying to get there, something better happens. 'Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues' To me, this song, and especially those lyrics are saying that whatever god(s) you believe in, created you for a purpose. You probably don't see that purpose from the moment you were born. But you can't stop believing. Though times may get rough and the going is tough, keep pushing because someday, you will make it, everything will make sense, and hopefully, you will be happy with the way things turned out.

For me this song is simple, picture a fishbowl will all types of fish from all different parts of the pond (the boy and girl) day in and day out we pass each other often barley acknowledging each other in the mundaneness of our lives but the one thing that unintes us is LOVE we all crave it we need it, it's hard wired in our brains. When we don't have love we are in constant search of someone who can feel that deep dark lonely void. (streetlight people, dark of the night) I think the train represents the uncertaintly of life we all face not knowing whats next as well as willing to take chances in order to fulfill our void.(train bound for anywhere) We go to nightclub in search of love (singer in a smokey room) and if were lucky we can find someone (for a smile they can share the night) perhaps were really lucky and have an instant chemistry with someone the kind where you spot them across the room and feel an instant connection deep down in your soul and right then and there you take a chance you could get lucky and find your soulmate or you may just end up singing the blues who knows. The same story is carried out day after day night after night because were humans and love is what drives us we are constantly in seek of it wether we realize it or not(the movie never ends it just goes on an on)

i think that the boy and girl were just desperate to get away from their homes because they have lived there their whole lives. they wanted something new-and they got it by just going anywhere.when the chorus comes in, i believe he's telling them(the boy/girl)that they cant give up and to keep believeing that they can have a better life. never stop believing, and if a (Barely!)12 year old can see something in a song, you should be able to too.

Can mean anything to anyone depending on their own perspective.

Sounds like a journey (no pun intended) through Samsara, "it goes on and on and on". "Roll the dice" could be Spirit throwing itself into the world of form or "shadows", only to find itself again and again in the sport of play.

for a smile you can share the night- If your at an event, lets say a football game and you have your teams jersey on and next to you is a guy, girl and they have the same jersey on, you can stay in your closed mind in your own thoughts OR you can "smile" or buy the person a beer and "share the night" with a total stranger and have a great time!!! People...wake up!!! enjoy one another...this is life and life is a journey. Share the night!!!

It doesn't mean a damn thing, it's just a tearjerker..

Born and Raised in South Detroit.

The "streetlight people" in this song were actually viewed from one of the band members' hotel windows while they were staying overnight on the eastern side of Detroit before a concert. However, "east Detroit" was changed to "south Detroit" because it flowed better.

This song to me is about believing. It doesn't even say if the guy and girl actually meet (it's possible but where does it say he meets her or if they are even in the same city anymore) and then it talks about a singer in a smoky room and possibly two people sharing the night. The next line is it goes on and on and on. It goes from a guy and a girl who want something else out of life and then a singer who is probably getting lung cancer from the smoke and just wants something more. and the shadows what if they are searching for more. What if the emotion they are searching for is happiness? then later with paying anything to roll the dice just one more time, it's about getting another chance. Just don't give up and keep believing.

I'm graduating this year and this was voted in for the class theme song. I think the reason it endures so much for graduation is not only that it's something everyone knows, but that unlike most of what gets picked ("Good Riddance," "Here's to the Night," etc.) it doesn't focus on being sad something's over or saying goodbye. Instead, it focuses on all the joy and opportunities life brings, even after high school (such as the two people that meet in the first and second verses). It sends the message that although "some are born to sing the blues" and life may not be very easy at times, the important thing is to "roll the dice just one more time" and, of course, "don't stop believin'" - to keep trying and never give up no matter what happens.

While I like all the in depth analysis everyone has left about this song, I think most of you are overthinking it. It's simply a song about Las Vegas, "The Strip" in particular, Las Vegas Boulevard. Steve grew up just over the border in CA and spent a lot of his early music career there. All the obvious topics are mentioned in the song, prostitutes, gambling, smokey lounges, blues singers, the tram system, movie making... all the things you think of when you think of Las Vegas Boulevard. Told perhaps through the eyes of a prostitute and tourist meeting somewhere in the night. This is the song to be playing on your Vegas road trips.

Its about the addiction to gambling, they always say just one more time and never stop believing in a win.

Journey Fans Also Like:

The Bee Gees Metallica Yung Bleu Bill Withers Belinda Carlisle

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South Detroit confusion in Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' ' will be preserved forever

South Detroit, which basically does not exist, was officially immortalized this month by the Library of Congress.

You won't find it on a map, but now it's in the National Recording Registry , courtesy of the powerhouse rock band Journey and what turns out to have been a misinterpreted road sign. "Don't Stop Believin'," bellowed with glee by fans at Detroit Red Wings games and performed on "Glee" half a dozen times, was one of 25 recordings declared worthy of preservation for all eternity.

The class of 2022 also includes renowned hitmakers Linda Ronstadt, Wu-Tang Clan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Oh, and Motown's Four Tops, for "Reach Out, I'll Be There." But while the Tops were from Detroit, the song doesn't touch on it.

"Just a city boy," sang Journey's Steve Perry, "born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train goin' anywhere."

Though " Don't Stop Believin' " topped out at a surprisingly tame No. 9 on the Billboard top 100 in 1981-82, it's No. 1 for digital downloads among songs first released in the 20th century. It's the closing number in the Broadway musical "Rock of Ages" and it was the soundtrack for the final 3½ minutes of "The Sopranos."

It reverberates, it resonates. And if you're from metro Detroit, it confuses — much as Perry was confused when the band came to Detroit for a show at Cobo Arena.

More: Neal Rubin's back! And if you have a bad joke or a talking cat, he's all ears

More: As other anchors retire, WDIV's Devin Scillian ponders his timeline | Rubin

Perry cowrote "Don't Stop Believin'" with guitarist Neal Schon and keyboard player Jonathan Cain. As he explained to Library of Congress writer/editor Neely Tucker, he'd noticed a directional sign for I-75 that featured South on one line and Detroit on the next, and assumed that was a place or a district or at least something more concrete than Oz.

Born in a small central California farming town called Hanford, Perry had mostly seen the rest of the country through the windows of hotels and buses. He had no idea the Detroit River tacks sharply to portside as it swings past downtown, making "south" an uncertain term.

South Detroit, eh?

Ask the experts on either side of the river, and they'll tell you what truly lies in that direction.

"It's called Windsor," said John Roach, communications officer for the mayor's office.

"That's a funny question," said Craig Pearson, managing editor of the Windsor Star . "We do."

Pearson figures he's been to Detroit more than 400 times in the 32 years he has lived in Windsor. He's a fan. And he's a fan of "Don't Stop Believin'," both musically and practically.

"The fact that the song refers to being born and raised in south Detroit," he said, "makes me think that at least subconsciously, other people see Windsor as part of the Detroit experience."

All directions being equal, Perry said, "south Detroit" sounds far better in a lyric than east or west Detroit. Besides, if he'd said East Detroit, he'd have to go back and change it to Eastpointe.

Perry, 73, left the band in 1987, tired of traveling and bickering. His bandmates thought he needed knee surgery and he thought that was a personal decision, thank you, not a personnel decision.

He went back to California, rode his motorcycle, gained 50 or 60 pounds, lost it, and recorded occasional new music, including a Christmas album. But he didn't tour, and he rarely does interviews.

He made an exception for the Library of Congress. That was meaningful, said Tucker, and so was what Perry wore.

"The thing that was striking to us was when he put on a suit and tie for a streaming interview," he said. "We interview lots of people, and they don't put on suits and ties."

Tucker, 58, is a former Detroit Free Press reporter and foreign correspondent. As Perry remembered peering down at a street scene after the concert at Cobo, Tucker realized he must have been staying on a high floor in the hotel at the Renaissance Center. He recognized the orange cast from the old streetlights Perry described as he spoke about another Detroit-inspired passage in the song.

"Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching in the night," it says. "Streetlights, people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night."

The images connected, Perry's voice enraptured, and 40 years later, the Library of Congress called.

Better than the Hall of Fame

The national registry's mission is to identify audio treasures worthy of preservation for their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance. Out of the 4 million pieces in the library's sound collection, 600 have been enrolled since 2002.

Among Journey's accompanists this year, Ronstadt was honored for the Spanish-language album she recorded that went double platinum and mainstream in 1987, Wu-Tang Clan for reasserting the strength of East Coast Rap in 1993, and Roosevelt for his presidential speeches from 1933 to 1945. Ernest Tubb, Duke Ellington, the radio call of Henry Aaron's record-setting 715th home run ... all have now been recognized as essential Americana.

Perry, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, told Tucker it's the greatest honor of his life.

As for south Detroit, technically there's a southernmost point of anything, even the North Pole ice covering. In Detroit, it's a sliver of the 48217 ZIP code area near I-75 between Melvindale and River Rouge.

That’s not what comes to Emily Gail’s mind when she hears “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

About the same time Journey filled Cobo Arena, Gail was plastering the city with her motto, “Say Nice Things About Detroit.”

Ask her where to find south Detroit and she says, “In people’s imaginations.”

That's where the band put it, after all. Whatever and wherever you think it is when you close your eyes, you're absolutely correct.

You can email Neal Rubin at [email protected]. Find him on Twitter at @nealrubin_fp.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' ' in National Song Registry

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Journey - Small Town Girl Lyrics

Artist: Journey

Album: Miscellaneous

Genre: Rock

She's just a small town girl, living in a lonely world She took the midnight train going anywhere He's just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit He took the midnight train going anywhere I seen her in a smoky room The smell of wine and cheap perfume For a smile they can share the night It goes on and on and on and on Strangers waiting, walking down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Street lights, people living just to find emotion Hiding somewhere in the night Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill Betting anything to roll the dice just one more time Some will win, some will lose, some are born to sing the blues And the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on Strangers waiting, walking down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Street lights, people, living just to find emotion Hiding somewhere in the night Don't stop believing, hold on to that feeling Street lights, people Don't stop believing, hold on Street lights, people Don't stop believing hold on to that feeling Street lights, people, ohh

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