faithfully by journey music video

• Jonathan Cain
• Steve Perry

Behind the Song: “Faithfully” by Journey

by Tina Benitez-Eves September 10, 2021, 9:44 am 1 Comment

Highway run / Into the midnight sun / Wheels go round and round / You’re on my mind. 

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“In all honesty, it’s a road song,” says Jonathan Cain.

Observing the band’s touring crew, many of which didn’t have the money to fly their wives and kids around with them, the Journey keyboardist felt drawn to write a song about being on the road, far removed from loved ones, and found “Faithfully,” the first lines coming to Cain one evening after a show when the band was stuck in a snow storm.

“I watched the crew take down the whole stage—the speakers, the lights, the trusses,” Cain tells American Songwriter. “I watched the daredevils climb to the top like ‘Oh, my God, this is like a circus performance.’ I was so touched, and I thought we didn’t have a song, but if we had a song, or we sent one home to our loved ones, like a postcard to help bridge the distance between the road and home what would it be.”

Snowed in for the night, Cain started writing the first few lines of “Faithfully” on a napkin.

“I started thinking about me and my relationship, and I was missing my new wife at the time, and we were having trouble,” shares Cain. “There were early signs that we would probably split apart. I knew I needed to do something that said, ‘I love you, and whether or not you want to leave me, here it is,’ so I got on the bus, and there was this grey sky, and the moon was doing some kind of crazy stuff in the clouds, and it looked like the midnight sun. Then I wrote Highway run / Into the midnight sun / Wheels go round and round / You’re on my mind.”

After starting the song, Cain downed a beer and went to sleep, awakened by the smell of diesel fuel from the band’s bus. “In the morning, I saw the napkin sitting there on the nightstand and I said to myself, ‘This is a good song, so I started automatically lining up the lines and filling it in. In 30 minutes, all the lyrics were done. Then all of a sudden, I believe the Holy Spirit sent it to me, but I thought of the line ‘I’m forever yours, faithfully.’” 

Cain took the napkin to the band’s next soundcheck in Saratoga Springs, New York, placed it on his piano, and started quietly singing “Faithfully,” working out the melody and piano parts, yet never recorded any demo until he revisited “Faithfully” with the late producer Keith Olsen (Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy Osbourne, Heart) and finally recorded the track.

Olsen played the song for Heart’s Ann Wilson, who loved it, but it was a Journey song. By the time the band was recording Frontiers, they needed a ballad, and “Faithfully” was ready to go.

“Perry said to me ‘I’ll sing it on one condition, you can’t be in the room when I’m singing,’” remembers Cain. “I said, ‘fine,’ and we cut it in three takes. We never played it before. We never rehearsed it. That’s how good Journey is.” 

He adds, “Neil didn’t know what to play, and I looked at him and I said, ‘be a French horn”… and the song became a classic.”

Reflecting more on the track, Cain tells American Songwriter that the circumstances around the song give it deeper meaning threaded in love, faith, and music. “It was my first year out on the road, and I was in a really grateful place being young with a band like Journey, and grateful for how far up God had elevated me,” says Cain. “My identity was sort of acknowledged, finally. As a writer and performer, I felt like I belonged there. I didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, I don’t deserve this.’”

Replacing original keyboardist and Journey co-founder Gregg Rolie, who left the band to explore new projects and start a family, Cain, then 31, began working on the band’s seventh album, Escape , writing many of the tracks, including “Faithfully,” along with singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon in 1983. By the time Frontiers was released Cain already had “Don’t Stop Believin”—an encouraging phrase his father shared with him when he was younger—“Open Arms,” and more Journey hits under his belt. 

“I feel like I earned every bit of it,” says Cain of the recognition he felt by the time “Faithfully” was released. “At the same time, I was grateful.

Today, the song, which originally peaked at No. 12, has never left the Journey setlist, but Cain regrets that “Faithfully” never found placement in a film. He can’t even get the song covered, and once approached Garth Brooks as well as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill to cover the ballad.

“I can’t get it covered,” laughs Cain. “I guess they’re afraid of the original. It is a great song.”

Read Jonathan Cain’s recent interview with American Songwriter , here .

One Comment

According to Allmusic.com, “Faithfully” by Johnathan Cain has been covered 18 times including versions by Lorrie Morgan and Cain himself.

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Faithfully by Journey

Songfacts®:

• Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain wrote this song about the challenges of being a married man on the road in a rock band: Always another show Wondering where I am Lost without you At the time, he was married to his first wife, Tané, a singer who had a #37 hit in 1982 called "Holdin' On," which Jonathan co-wrote and produced. He and Tané divorced a few years later, despite him pledging in this song to be "forever yours... faithfully."
• In his Songfacts interview , Jonathan Cain said, "God gave me that song," as he wrote it so quickly. "I started it on the bus heading to Saratoga Springs," he said. "I woke up the next day with a napkin on the side of my nightstand and I looked at the lyrics, 'Highway run into the midnight sun.' Then I got this supernatural download: This is the rest of the song. I wrote rest of it down, almost frantically. I'd never had a song come to me so quickly that it was anointed, supernatural. Literally, in 30 minutes I had written that song. I had the napkin in my pocket and I put it on the piano. I had a big grand piano there by the orchestra. I played through it and I thought, 'Man, this is good.' The Lord gave me permission to finish it. Normally I would go to Steve Perry or somebody and say, 'Help me finish this song.' No. God gave me the mind to finish it, and the rest is history. That would be a love song to God, absolutely."
• According to the liner notes in Journey's Time3 compilation, Cain paid tribute to Journey road manager Pat Morrow and stage manager Benny Collins in the line, "We all need the clowns to make us smile." "He told me he got the melody out of a dream," said Neal Schon. "I wish something like that would happen to me." "Basically it's a road song," Cain said. "You know I'm being a good dog out here - don't worry about it."
• Like " Rosanna " by Toto, this contains lyrics delivered by the lead singer but written by another member of the band, which led many fans to believe Steve Perry wrote the song about a particular girl.
• Journey's first music video was for this song. At the time, finding a director for a video wasn't easy, especially in America, so the band's manager, Herbie Herbert, hired the guys from NFL Films to shoot footage of the band on the road and onstage. So the same guys who filmed Walter Payton scoring touchdowns also filmed Steve Perry shaving his mustache. Journey hated making videos, but couldn't ignore the promotional impact of MTV. The network favored acts like Journey at the time because they were trying to position themselves with a rock format.
• The song was performed by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith in the first season finale of Glee , along with several other Journey songs in the same episode. In the week after the transmission of the episode, download sales of the Glee version were sufficient to return the song to the Top 40 of the Hot 100.
• When he was young, Jonathan Cain wanted to be a priest. He attended the Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago and survived the 1958 fire there that killed 95 people. He stepped away from his faith, and after going through turmoil with Journey and enduring two failed marriages, he had an epiphany on a road in Florida, where he found himself calling out to God. He joined the New Destiny Christian Center in Orlando, Florida, and in 2015 married its pastor, Paula White. In 2016 he released his first album of worship music, What God Wants to Hear . Looking back on "Faithfully," he saw it in a different light. "If you take 'Oh girl' and you put 'Oh God' in there, you've got a Christian song," he told Songfacts.
• More songs from Journey
• More songs about being away from loved ones
• More songs covered by the Glee cast
• More songs from 1983
• Lyrics to Faithfully
• Journey Artistfacts

Comments: 39

• Luna Loud from Royal Woods, Michigan You know, dudes, it's too bad this band's videos suck because their songs are so effin' amazing. And I'm with you 'Raf from Clovis, Ca; this song gets me in the feels every time.
• Chase Tart from North Carolina I’m 14 and this has to be my favorite song, which testifies to this song being so timeless. Not many musicians would credit God with the gift to write songs, so major props to Jonathan.
• Anonymous from Nacogdoches Texas I get the joy of rediscovering you...
• A-bomb from Duluth, Ga Usa And being apart ain't easy on this love affair Two strangers learn to fall in love again I get the joy Of rediscovering you Oh girl, you stand by me I'm forever yours, faithfully
• Rafael Burgos from Clovis, Ca This song makes me cry.
• Stuartdevoy from Cornwall, United Kingdom I was always ridiculed at school for liking Journey, not that any of the kids had ever heard there stuff, I'm English) I guess they weren't hip enough. then glee sing there songs and everybody's saying how good they are, all those years they missed out on, there is a lesson there somewhere. this is a great track used to stand in my bedroom with a tennis racket pretending to Neil Schon.
• Betty from Bedford, Oh I thought this song was written by Steve Perry but I guess not LOL songs that are written about something you feel are the best songs. This is one of my ultimate favorites songs.
• Hannah from Ottawa, On ANY Journey song is a good song but I particularly like Faithfully and Open Arms. They remind me of the early 8o's when I was in middle school. We always heard these songs at the school dances.
• Megan from Stevenson, Al OMG! This song is so great! One of the greatest bands in history...
• Mariana from Timisoara, Romania I decided to have this song played at my wedding when I first heard it, years before I met my husband. It is so beautiful and so romantic!
• Jordan from San Antonio, Tx my bf is the best to me. im so thankful for him and how he treats me. after everything he still cares for me tremendously.. i cried when i heard this song after he told me it reminds him of me like crzy. he is a very known band...and this song fits his commitment towards me . i love him
• Tt from Columbia, Sc A piece of history a song that will last forever and a day ,
• Danny from Your Town, Ia A song that will stand the test of time. Our grandkids will be talking about this one. My 17 year old already does.
• David from Youngstown, Oh One of the most unintentionally funny songs ever. The lyrics are so cliche. "They say that the road ain't no place to start a family" and "Circus lights under the big top world." So ridiculous. Forever yours...faithfully
• Theresa from Murfreesboro, Tn Journey's best song - hands down.
• Brandon from Kalamazoo, Mi my favorite song of all time....just hits me every time...Steve Perry's voice it's so good
• Jackie Moritz from Philadelphia, Pa When I first heard this song I was 13, now almost four years later this song still is my favorite! My best friend Jarred & I dedicated this song to each other. He moved away two years ago and to me this song describes how faithful we are to each other.
• Aaron from Jacksonville, Fl When I first heard this song when I was 17 it has gotten me through a lot of tough times! One of there best!!
• Rhodora from Quezon , Philippines This song was written by Jonathan Cain on a napkin of The Hilton Hotel when they were on the road, touring.
• Aldrin from Manila, Philippines very romantic journey song..beautiful song lines accompanied with steve perry's powerful vocals and neil schon's guitar..man i have nothing to say about this song but for me its a classic..
• Erikka from Buckeye, Az This song is probably the most romantic song I have ever heard!! I love it! I asked the DJ at prom if he would play it, and he asked me "Who's Journey?" I thought he was joking. I was 10 years younger than the guy, and he didn't even know who Journey is!! Pitiful, just pitiful.
• Jeff from Chicago, Ga Randy jackson played bass on the Raised on Radio album and toured with the band.. that hot pink outfit he wore should be outlawed!!
• Melissa from Lorton, Va I love this song... I remember when I was four and my dad would play this song on the radio to help me go to sleep. It is one of my favorite Journey songs.
• Jeff from Austin, Tx I agree with Scott from Columbus. That is a fantastic line. And the line before it as well..."Two strangers learn to fall in love again". Unbelievable song, easily one of the best ever written. And as usual, Steve Perry sang the hell out of it.
• Chris from Miami, Fl I used to love this song because I would always dedicate it to my gf wenever i would hear it but after all that it really meant nuthing. Its a great song with lyrics that have meaning but honestly I don't like it anymore =[
• Julia from Knoxville, Tn Ryan, it's ironic that I notice you're in Mobile, AL. this song was popular when I lived there.
• Julia from Knoxville, Tn My best friend was able to go to a Journey concert, and that is what makes her get emotional now when she and I both hear the song.
• Matt from Bristol, United States I first heard this song about 10 years ago on a TV advert for a sale on sofas at BHS :P Then, last year, I bought a Journey album and was instantly reaquainted.
• I. Orta from Austin, Tx it stinks being born in 89 cuz nobody tells you about all this great music that was created before any song that came out was manufactured from a make up artist an excutive and some eye candy to sell records. i wanna know what the good times were like, especially when gas was low. and 80s people thought they knew everything, i wanna know!!!!
• Mike from Orleans, In This is my favorite Journey song. i am one of a few students at my high school who listens to Journey.
• Brad from Redding, Ca Has anybody seen the music video for this? It has got to be one of the most unintentially funny things I've ever seen. The shot of Steve Perry about to shave his moustache is hilarious.
• Millerman from Dacusville, Sc Hey Danny in Cape Breton (sounds like a beautiful place), it was 3 years after this song was released before Randy Jackson came on board for the Journey lads. Cheers, mate!
• Robert from San Francisco, Ca Great ipod song while riding throught the streets of SF!
• Danny from Cape Breton, Canada totaly wicked song i was wondering if american idol judge randy jackson played with journey or this track as a basist, i am sure he has, as said earlier this one will take you back to that special one who will always be faithfully!
• Scott from Columbus, Oh The line: "I get the joy of re-discovering you" is nothing short of genius and inspiring...what a beautiful way to say I still appreiciate your love and how much it inspires me. Fooking beautiful! Journey was a certainly one of the best combinations of musicians to ever become. Bravo!
• Jayna from Youngstown, Oh Journey is by far the GREATEST band in the entire world!!! i love open arms best song ever! faithfully is my 2nd favorite song!! JOURNEY KICKS ASS!!
• Dee from Indianapolis, In This has to be one of the best love songs ever written. Between this and Open Arms you can't go wrong for slow dancing or romancing. This reminds me of some of my 1st crushes I had as a early teen. I still can tear up over this one at times.
• Ryan from Mobile, Al True True...it is a great song. I do think of the one that got away :'(
• Joe from Ocala, Fl You can't hear this song without thinking of the girl that got away in your own life.

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Journey – Faithfully

Home » Journey » Journey – Faithfully

Journey – Faithfully – Official Music Video The song was written by Jonathan Cain. “Faithfully” was released as the second single from Journey’s eighth studio album “Frontiers”. The single was released in April 1983 with “Frontiers” on the B-side in the U.S. (“Edge Of The Blade” in Europe and the UK). The single peaked at #12 on Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States.

Journey – Faithfully – Lyrics

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Journey - Faithfully (Official HD Video - 1983)

Official HD video for “Faithfully' by Journey Listen to Journey: Watch more Journey videos: Subscribe to the official Journey YouTube channel: Follow Journey: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: Website: Spotify: YouTube: Chorus: They say that the road ain't no place to start a family Right down the line it's been you and me And lovin' a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be Oh, girl, you stand by me I'm forever yours, faithfully #Journey #Faithfully #OfficialHDVideo #Remastered

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Faithfully Drum Sheet Music

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Description

Complete and annotated drum sheet music (score) in PDF format for the song Faithfully by Journey .

This score is real drum music and not a drum tab which is music shorthand. It includes accents, vocal queues, cymbals, and complex stick patterns that are impossible to show in drum tab shorthand.

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Ross Valory Embarks On His Own Journey

An interview with the legendary bassist about his solo debut

“I didn’t carve my way into the music business with this solo project; I’ve already had a career,” says Ross Valory, calling from his home just outside of San Francisco. “So for me, this [album] is a sense of freedom, to explore and create and produce music that I really love, and to share it.”

Valory is best known for being the longtime bassist for the rock band Journey – he played on their megahits “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Open Arms,” “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” “Send Her My Love,” “Faithfully,” and many more – but he parted ways with the band in 2020. These days, he’s focused on his solo career, for which he released his debut album, All of the Above , earlier this month on April 12.

“I’m very excited about this,” Valory says of All of the Above ’s release. “Having a stack of interviews does convince me that this is really happening. It’s been a labor of love – over ten years of recording. And it’s my first foray into the music world beyond a long and fabulous career with Journey.”

Across eight eclectic tracks, All of the Above demonstrates that Valory’s skills go far beyond Journey’s brand of mainstream rock. This is, Valory says, the reason why he named the album as he did: “There’s quite a variety of material. Quite disparate. Many, many different styles. I can’t say that any one of them is a pure style, but it’s more of a fusion or impressionism. So ‘all of the above’ means there’s a lot to choose from – there’s a lot of different things to hear.

“The second meaning [behind the album title] has to do with the fact that these are the first recordings in which I’ve recorded different instruments,” he continues. “Keyboards in ‘Wild Kingdom.’ ‘Windmill’ was written on guitar, and I’m playing all the guitars on that song. And then in two other instances, I’m recording for the first time with two basses – ‘Night Flower’ and ‘No One Wins the War’ have underlying supporting bass parts with fretless solo work.”

A certain cohesion is still evident in the material, Valory adds, because of the careful way these songs were sequenced. “It’s like a set list, a performance list: one bases it on tempo or a key or energy level, so that it breathes and moves and builds, so it has a dynamic flow to it,” he says. “The way the album is sequenced, if somebody turns off their phone, closes their eyes or turns off the light, and just plays the entire album, it is an adventure in itself.”

So far, he has received only positive feedback from fans. “I have no complaints about the amount of attention and the amount of appreciation people have shown me about the music. I’m pleasantly surprised,” he says. 

In a way, this solo album has been in the making since long before Valory left Journey.

“The material on All of the Above is the result of finally getting around to finishing what I started,” he says. “These are compositions that have been sitting, so to speak, on the back burner. Some of the material is decades old.”

About a decade ago, Valory finally decided to complete what he’d started with these songs, so he began recording them bit by bit. He didn’t overthink why it finally seemed like the right time; as he simply says, “It was just time to do it.”

Although this is his solo project, Valory is careful to give credit to the many people who collaborated with him to make this album possible, including guitarist Miles Schon (son of Journey guitarist Neal Schon), multi-instrumentalist Eric Levy, and drummer Prairie Prince and keyboardist Michael Cotten (both of the band The Tubes). Prince also created the album artwork.

Ultimately, though, Valory is firmly in control of the material – “It’s got my name all over it, so I guess it’s all my fault, really,” he says with a laugh – so in that respect, it’s been a very different experience for him to put these songs out into the world, compared to his previous album releases with Journey. “Definitely, it’s a completely different feeling,” he says.

He’s clearly enjoying the freedom he has to create these songs as he sees fit, without the constraints of any particular “band sound” to limit him. He credits his parents for instilling an adventurous musical approach in him because they exposed him to a wide range of artists throughout his childhood in the Bay Area.

“In the household or in the car, the kind of music that was on the turntable or on the radio was really varied, so there’s all these influences that I really enjoyed,” Valory says. He can recall listening to everything from classical music such as Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Handel, all the way to jazz, R&B, and rock hits by the likes of Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and Fats Domino.

He also spent a lot of time performing in his church and school choirs, as well as playing various instruments in his school’s band. When he was nine years old, he wrote his first song, an instrumental he wrote while strumming an acoustic guitar. He never gave it a title, though he still remembers the melody – and he thinks he may record it for one of his future solo albums.

VIDEO: Ross Valory “Windmill”

While Valory was still in school, he made a fateful switch to the bass guitar.

“Somebody talked me into joining their little rock band, to pick up the bass guitar,” he explains. “They knew that I could play guitar, so the bass would be easy. So there was this transition midway through high school to popular music. I’m fortunate enough that I followed it up to the point where it was a professional career.”

Within seven years, Journey had been created, and Valory was there from the beginning. That band would go on to dominate the charts throughout the 1980s – in fact, just this year, Forbes magazine declared that their 1981 song “Don’t Stop Believin’,” from their seventh studio album Escape , is the “Biggest Song of All Time.” (That article was based on that fact that the Recording Industry Association of America recently certified the song as reaching 18-times platinum sales.)

Despite that success, Valory doesn’t regret leaving Journey and beginning his solo career. He’s already writing and recording songs for his next release, which he promises will not, as with All of the Above , take a decade to complete. He expects this next album will continue his tendency toward creating stylistically diverse material: “I would say that the horizon will expand further than what people have already heard.”

For now, though, Valory hopes fans will find plenty to like as they listen to All of the Above .

“I hope that they’ll enjoy the variety of styles and influences, and will enjoy something from me beyond the kind of music I was performing and recording with Journey,” he says. “I would think there’s something for everybody there. I like to think it just brings happiness and joy to people.”

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Katherine Yeske Taylor

Katherine Yeske Taylor is a longtime New Yorker, but she began her rock critic career in Atlanta in the 1990s, interviewing Georgia musical royalty such as the Indigo Girls, R.E.M. and the Black Crowes while she was still a teenager. Since then, she has conducted thousands of interviews with a wide range of artists for dozens of national, regional, and local magazines and newspapers, including Billboard, Spin, American Songwriter, FLOOD, etc. She is the author of two forthcoming books: She’s a Badass: Women in Rock Shaping Feminism (out December 2023 via Backbeat Books), and she's helping Eugene Hütz of Gogol Bordello write his memoir, Rock the Hützpah: Undestructible Ukrainian in the Free World (out in 2024 via Matt Holt Books/BenBella). She also contributed to two prestigious music books (Rolling Stone’s Alt-Rock-A-Rama and The Trouser Press Guide to ’90s Rock. She has also written album liner notes and artist bios (PR materials) for several major musical artists.

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