‘It’s a song that gives you permission to dream – and there are still a lot of smalltown girls and city boys wanting to get on a midnight train to anywhere’
Jonathan Cain, piano/songwriter
I’d moved from Chicago to Hollywood in the 70s, but I’d fallen behind and needed a loan from my dad. I felt bad, and asked him: “Should I just come home and give up this rock’n’roll dream of mine?” And he told me: “No, stick to your guns. Don’t stop believing.” For a father back then, that was unheard of. Most dads would have said: “Get a job!”
I wrote it in a lyric book and, five years later, when I joined Journey and our singer Steve Perry was looking for new songs for the Escape album, I heard the melody in my head with my dad’s advice on it.
Steve and I put ourselves in that song. We both came from the nightclub scene and got our breaks through Journey. So I guess we’re the “singer in the smoky room”. Sunset Boulevard was the backdrop for my early days, looking at the music business from the outside. The lyric was “Strangers waiting up and down the Boulevard” – because that’s where I saw it all going on.
I came to find out, much later, that my piano chords are almost the same as Let It Be. But at least I took a fresh stab at it. And I always say, if you nick something, nick it from the best. I recently saw a video of this Australian group, Axis of Awesome, who play the Don’t Stop Believin’ changes over about 30 songs.
The Fantasy Studios where we recorded Don’t Stop Believin’ had no windows. It was like a tomb, and it drove me mad because I didn’t know if it was light or dark outside. But when Neal and I sequenced the Escape album, we knew there was something about this song. When you put the needle down, the first thing you hear is the mysterious piano and that line: “Just a smalltown girl, living in a lonely world.” It draws you in.
I think every song has a destiny. When it was first released in 1981, Don’t Stop Believin’ didn’t get played a ton on the radio – it only made it to No 9 and then it was gone. But it has lasted and lasted. It’s a song that gives you permission to dream. And there are still a lot of smalltown girls and city boys wanting to get on a midnight train going anywhere. Everyone is still looking for that window of hope and opportunity and possibility. That’s universal. That’s never going to change.
Neal Schon, guitar/songwriter
I had taken over a great studio in Oakland that was owned by Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone. It was hidden away, and it became the band’s clubhouse for jamming and writing. One day Jon walked in and played the piano part for Don’t Stop Believin’, and we started kicking this new song around.
I came up with the guitar part – you know, the “diddly-diddly-diddly” – before Jon and Steve wrote the lyrics, so it painted a picture to them of a “midnight train” going down the tracks and speeding up. There actually isn’t a “South Detroit”, but Steve wrote that lyric because it sang better than East Detroit or North Detroit.
The arrangement is really odd. When you’re trying to get on the radio, you want to hit the chorus fast. Like they say: “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” The chorus of Don’t Stop Believin’ doesn’t happen until the very end. Steve was relishing that chorus, so when I said, “I feel like I should play the chorus melody in my guitar solo,” he turned to me and went: “You’re gonna play my melody before I sing it?”
We were so well rehearsed, we just walked into Fantasy Studios like we were walking on stage. We knocked that song out in a couple of hours. That’s the beauty of having a real band of great musicians. We had such chemistry. I really miss the days of everyone being in the same room.
When I first heard the finished song I knew it was special, but it took years to get to the place where it’s a worldwide anthem. Everybody has their own theory about why Don’t Stop Believin’ exploded in the new millennium. First, there was the movie Monster, with Charlize Theron. Then came The Sopranos – I remember my phone blowing up and all my friends saying: “Man, did you see the final scene?” Then Glee happened. I was terrified by that because I thought it was a teenybopper show, not so cool for us. Little did I know that it would open up a younger generation to our music. I’m a rocker and a blues guy, and we always joke that if I think something is too schmaltzy, it’s usually gonna be big!
We just got done selling out three years of arenas and the band is firing on all cylinders right now. When we play Don’t Stop Believin’ live, I feel like I’m in my Ferrari.
