“Don’t Stop Believin’” is one of those songs that everybody knows. It’s a classic karaoke anthem and a nod to the 80s. Not to mention, it’s also a song that wins the competition for most nostalgic ballad every time. It’s so good that when you’re singing it, you probably don’t realize that one of the lyrics is a mistake. Here’s the story of how Steve Perry, Journey‘s lead singer, essentially made up a detail in “Don’t Stop Believin”.
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In 2012, over 30 years after the hit’s release, Vulture did a story based on the lyric “Born and raised in South Detroit.” You might know that piece from the first verse of the song. According to Perry and Vulture, there’s no way that boy could have been raised in South Detroit. The truth is, South Detroit doesn’t exist.
“I ran the phonetics of east, west, and north, but nothing sounded as good or emotionally true to me as South Detroit,” Perry said of writing the ballad. “It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve learned that there is no South Detroit. But it doesn’t matter.”
If we’re getting literal about the location, “South Detroit” would actually be somewhere close to Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. It’s not a neighborhood, it’s just a few words that sounded cool together.
Even if it’s not a real place, you gotta admit, it’s hard to imagine any other sound fitting quite as well as “South Detroit” does.
How Steve Perry Came to Journey’s Rescue
Even though Journey didn’t really take off as a band until Steve Perry joined in 1977, the group had already released three albums by then. But their attempts had achieved little success, and their label, Columbia Records, wanted the group to make a change.
Perry told Louder, “Actually, it should be pointed out – and I only found this out a few years later – that the label had told the band that if they didn’t get a singer they were going to drop them.”
That’s when Perry’s name was given to Herbie Herbert, the band’s manager. At the time, the band thought Perry was “a bit of a crooner”, but Herbert had a vision.
“He said in essence, if not the actual words, ‘This is your new singer, deal with it,’” Perry shared. “I don’t think I would have been in the band if Herbie had not just said, ‘Look guys, get used to it, keep going and shut the f*** up and write the music.’
And thank goodness they did, because it led to us getting one of the most iconic ballads of all time.
Photo by: © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images
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