For My Lady, Faithfully

Now that the smoke has begun to clear from the nationwide explosion of outrage over the way David Chase ended The Sopranos, I am beginning to think that Mr. Chase's biggest crime wasn't that he intentionally fucked with his show's loyal fans, but that he actually managed to confer belated credibility upon Journey. This past Sunday afternoon, those masters of early 80s-style arena Velveeta were languishing safely in the "Where Are They Now?" file; by Monday morning, the media were clamoring for interviews with former lead singer Steve Perry, and critics everywhere were picking apart the lyrics of "Don't Stop Believin'" — a song that virtually defines the term "karaoke guilty pleasure" — as if it were Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row". No doubt, next week's Billboard charts will show a massive spike in Journey catalog sales, and the band (having just conveniently parted ways with their most recent lead singer) will reunite with Perry for a record-shattering US tour. Thanks again, Mr. Chase.

Okay, I will admit that I thought "Wheel In The Sky" was a pretty heavy tune — both musically and philosophically — when I was twelve years old. But by the 80s, Journey had become so all-pervasive that it was nearly impossible to go anywhere without hearing Steve Perry's high-pitched yelp or Neil Schon's "tasty" guitar leads. (There was even a Journey video game, fer chrissakes!) By my senior year in high school, if I could have lopped off a digit in exchange for never having to hear music by a particular artist again, I'd have chosen Phil Collins — but Journey would have been a very close second.

That said, I would probably be willing to part with at least a small toe in order to once again watch the episode of Friday Night Videos hosted by Journey's Neil Schon and Jonathan Cain. Not because they were particularly funny or engaging hosts, but because of Jonathan Cain's surprisingly emotional introduction for Journey's then-latest video, "Faithfully". It's been over twenty years now, but I can still remember the dude looking down and away from the camera, as if he would burst into tears at any second, saying something like, "I was on the road for a long time, and I was really missing my lady, so I wrote this song... for my lady." He seriously said "my lady" about a dozen times; the guy was obviously sincere in his love for his "lady", but it was about the most hilariously anachronistic term of endearment you could have possibly used at the time, with a strange hippie/sexist overtone that was WAY out of date by 1983.

What was even more hilarious, though, was that Cain's very real emotion resulted in this unbelievably hackneyed ballad/video combo [see above], where every song lyric is mirrored (and always in the most painfully literal way) by the "action" on screen. The only part of this video anybody remembers is Steve Perry pondering whether or not to shave his god-awful moustache; when he finally makes the agonizing decision to slather on the shaving cream, the poignancy of the moment is almost too unbearable to take. Sophie's Choice had nothing on this...

(My friend Jason tells me that the footage for the "Faithfully" video was taken from a long-form Journey "on the road" documentary made by NFL Films, complete with ultra-serious voice-overs by the same guy who did all the football highlights shows. Now THAT I would love to see!)

Incidentally, Mr. Cain's "lady" was a woman named Tané Cain, whose Benatar-esque 1982 album was an eye-catching perennial in the cut-out bins of my youth. After Mr. Cain co-wrote and co-produced her album, and publicly, near-tearfully dedicated "Faithfully" to "my lady", she totally divorced the poor shmuck. She went on to co-star with Klaus Kinski in the cinematic meisterwerk "Crawlspace", and continues to act in films like under her maiden name, Tané McClure. There is no mention of Jonathan Cain in her bio.

Comments

[MJ]

I'm such an idiot... I was thinking "That chick from the Whitesnake video sure looks different there."

Derr.. Tawny Kitaen, not Tané Cain.

[Stuart Shea]

The real rehabilitation of Journey started, of course, with the White Sox winning the World Series in 2005 and dragging "Don't Stop Believin'" into the whole mess. Maybe if the Sox had used "Lights" or even "Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin" instead, I might have been able to forgive...

That video is priceless, btw. Thank you.

[Dan E]

Right you are, Stu; I'd forgotten all about that. Fuckin' Sox...

[Chris]

After a big Vital Signs gig sometime in 1985 if memory serves, we retired to the drummer's parents house (ah, young suburban quasi metal) to "celebrate" and we rented two videos, one of which was the NFL Films Journey concert tour thing you mention. Things like this don;t usually make an impression lasting more than 20 seconds let alone 20 years unless a) they are fantastic b) they are atrocious or c) they are hilarious. The NFL films video is so over the top that it scores a solid 8 on the unintentional comedy scale. The best bit is when Neil Schon gets hit with a bottle and gets a cut above his eye. As you can probably imagine, the NFL Films guys repeat the footage about 20 times, from different angles, blowing it up, and slowing it down while saying things like "That had to hurt" and, when Schon keeps playing, "All right Neil, that's the way, keep playing!" Priceless.

[Heath]

I heard that one of the early battles between Chase and the network was over what music to use in the show. Apparently HBO wanted them to use cheesy-eighties music (like Tony and Carmella would have listened to). Some have speculated that the Journey song was sort of an inside joke related to that.

[Michael Ansaldo]

I'd gladly part with a digit to forget that Journey was my first ever concert. I wouldn't want to eradicate Phil Collins if it meant I couldn't ever hear "I Missed Again," though.

The man who did the voice-overs for NFL Films was the late, great John Facenda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Facenda), who deserves more than to be remembered for a shitty arena-rock road film.

[hipspinster]

mine was loverboy! feel better now?

[JenaC]

You just settled a bet, and I'd like to thank you for it. I TOLD my friend it wasn't Tawny Kitaen!!! ;-)

[Dan E]

Anytime, Jena! Always happy to keep the distinction between Tane Cain and Tawny Kitaen clear for future generations...