Music: Continuing Journey

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By Newsweek Editors

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It had been hiding some-where in the night. Journey's 1981 power ballad "Don't Stop Believin' " had suffered an ignoble fall, from Billboard top-10 hit to--well, let's not discuss the crimes perpetrated on Steve Perry's song in all-hours karaoke bars across the world. Across decades.

But 2005 made clear the extent to which Americans never stopped believin'. Fox's "Family Guy" paid homage to "Don't Stop Believin' " when Peter Griffin and his pals covered it en route to forming a band. "How do I say this without completely insulting the song?" asks executive producer David Goodman. "It's upbeat, light and seems to have a message but doesn't. It's so cheesy." Which may explain the ironic infatuation with the song on MTV's "Laguna Beach." Stephen and Kristin listened to "DSB" while driving; it became Stephen's ringtone, and later his admirer LC used it, too. Repeats of these shows in October, combined with the White Sox's adoption of the tune as their anthem in their World Series run that month, prompted about 8,000 iTunes downloads, which launched "DSB" to No. 3 on the service's rock chart in early November, according to the Mitch Schneider Organization, the firm that handled the CD-DVD release of "Live in Houston 1981."

The song endures because "it's about hope," Perry tells NEWSWEEK. "People want to reach for their dreams and hope for their hopes--'Don't stop believin'/Hold on to the feelin''." Perry started writing those lyrics in a Detroit hotel room after a Journey show; he couldn't sleep. Out his window he saw stragglers, city boys "born and raised in south Detroit." South Detroit doesn't really exist--south Detroit would be Windsor, Canada--but allow the man poetic license. He clearly knows how to use it, since his songs live on and on and on and on.

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