Copyright Parade
While some songs shoot to the top of the charts as soon as they’re released, others take months or even years to become hits. Case in point: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.'” Released in 1981, the anthemic tune has been certified 18-times platinum, and was ranked the biggest song in America by Forbes in 2024. In 2022, the single was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry for its “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” status. But when it first came out, critics weren’t particularly impressed…and as guitarist Neal Schon recently revealed, one of the song’s key elements came about after a rather surprising request from producers. “They said, ‘Play something dumb,’” Schon said in a new interview with Rick Beato. In an attempt to comply with the unlikely directive, Schon came up with the “chunky rhythm part” that kicks off the third verse of “Don’t Stop Believin.'” “It’s like a Bachman-Turner Overdrive, ‘Taking Care of Business’ kind of rhythm part,” Schon explained. “And it just kind of worked. When you listen to it, you don’t even really notice it, but if you take it out, then you go, ‘What happened to it?’” “It wasn’t my idea — I came up with the rhythm part,” he added. “But that’s what a good producer will do for you — make you search a little bit.” How Journey ended up with a massive streaming hit years later Decades later, the success of “Don’t Stop Believin'” — boosted by such factors as its frequent use at sporting events, and inclusion in such popular TV shows as The Sopranos and Glee — continues to astound Schon, who wrote the tune along with singer Steve Perry and keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jonathan Cain. “It’s crazy. When we wrote it, I thought there was something there, you know — when we were messing around with it in the studio,” Schon said, per Guitar Player. “When I went back in the studio to listen after we cut it and it was coming together [in the] mix, I looked at the guys, and I go, ‘I think there’s something here that’s special, that’s going to be bigger than this whole record,'” he continued, adding, “And not until this many decades later, did it happen. But it did happen.”
