The attack of the killer "Journey" songs

Well there i was...having a great time.

We all are laughing and singing and someone grabs the karaoke mic and begins to belt out "Don't Stop Believin'" It is, like, the 387,416th time in a week that I have heard a Journey song....I had gone years happily avoiding Steve Perry and friends' powerfully simple lyrics, thunder-ballad anthems, and bar-band arrangements.

Honestly, perhaps that was their appeal as a band in my youth...Journey had a way, from the start, of sounding like an only slightly better-than-average Journey cover band. Which is a little like when Charlie Chaplin came in 5th in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest at the height of his world-wide popularity.

Anyway...I thought, since I can't seem to get away from these songs (they attack me in my car, in the grocery store, on the toilet--don't ask.) and since I have yet to hear if I have been granted a restraining order against "STONE IN LOVE," I thought I would take a moment to look at some of the classic Journey tunes.

"DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'": Ok...It's a song about "Streetlight people" ....not to be confused with "street people" or "people of low body weight"...Streetlight people by the way, often become "zombie, brain-eating-type people" in some of your better movies. Either that or they become something even more nebulous in meaning...."Community Organizers."

There's one Streetlight Person (SP) who takes a train and is clearly not concerned about the destination of said transport....Now, I've been DISTRACTED sometimes...even wanting to just Esc4p3 (sorry...had to!) from life but, don't you think that when SP got to, say, Boise and they got on the train in Vermont, that they might panic a little? no? Probably not...because they were listening to "I'LL BE ALL RIGHT WITHOUT YOU"...."YOU" being all their earthly possessions.

My favorite lyrics come at the end..."Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..." So, we now know that the singer is a dad and has been tricked into seeing "Diary of a Wimpy Kid!"...which explains the title of another Journey hit "Who's Crying Now?" ...well duh....Dad is. Buck up, Dad...at least I won't be commenting on "Oh! Sherrie!" and make THAT nugget of classic Americana stuck in your head all day tomorrow....ooops!

Next up: "LOVIN' (They like those words with the apostrophe at the end don't they? ...or they hate the letter "G" ...hey Journey! Don't be hatin' everythin' ...that's not goin' to help anythin'!) TOUCHIN' SQUEEZIN'"

Little-known fact: Steve Perry wrote this after a particularly rough night involving intestinal distress and 2 bags of White Castles. Thus, "it's tearin' me apart..." repeated throughout the song. Another note of interest? The famous "na na na na na "....(times 270) lines at the very end not only broke copyright laws set in place years earlier by "Hey Jude," but the song also paid for Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills and bought her a prosthetic leg made totally out of Neal Schon's melted down platinum record displays. I'm just "kiddin'!"

Let's take a quick and fairly painless look at "LIGHTS"

About a guy that wants to get back to his favorite city by the bay. He seems to miss his girl too....(I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there even though it's set in a city by the bay)....overpowered by raw romantic waves of emotion, he says what any of us would say:

It's sad, oh there's been mornings

out on the road without you
Without your charms
Oh ooh oh oh, my my my my my
Oh, oh, oh oh

Well..what any of us would say who had recently had their hippocampus speared by Steve Perry's nose.

By the way, ladies...the appropriate romantic response to the above poetry is of course, "na na na na na na...na na na naaaaaa na! na na na na na na na na naaaaaa na naaaah!"

Probably better off to "BE GOOD TO YOURSELF" and go your "SEPERATE WAYS."

Ok...all that said, I guess I must come clean. I like Journey. There! I mean, it could be worse....they could be fronted by Celine Dion!