South Detroit confusion in Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' ' will be preserved forever

South Detroit, which basically does not exist, was officially immortalized this month by the Library of Congress.

You won't find it on a map, but now it's in the National Recording Registry, courtesy of the powerhouse rock band Journey and what turns out to have been a misinterpreted road sign. "Don't Stop Believin'," bellowed with glee by fans at Detroit Red Wings games and performed on "Glee" half a dozen times, was one of 25 recordings declared worthy of preservation for all eternity.

The class of 2022 also includes renowned hitmakers Linda Ronstadt, Wu-Tang Clan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Oh, and Motown's Four Tops, for "Reach Out, I'll Be There." But while the Tops were from Detroit, the song doesn't touch on it.

"Just a city boy," sang Journey's Steve Perry, "born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train goin' anywhere."

Though "Don't Stop Believin'" topped out at a surprisingly tame No. 9 on the Billboard top 100 in 1981-82, it's No. 1 for digital downloads among songs first released in the 20th century. It's the closing number in the Broadway musical "Rock of Ages" and it was the soundtrack for the final 3½ minutes of "The Sopranos."

It reverberates, it resonates. And if you're from metro Detroit, it confuses — much as Perry was confused when the band came to Detroit for a show at Cobo Arena.

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Perry cowrote "Don't Stop Believin'" with guitarist Neal Schon and keyboard player Jonathan Cain. As he explained to Library of Congress writer/editor Neely Tucker, he'd noticed a directional sign for I-75 that featured South on one line and Detroit on the next, and assumed that was a place or a district or at least something more concrete than Oz.

Born in a small central California farming town called Hanford, Perry had mostly seen the rest of the country through the windows of hotels and buses. He had no idea the Detroit River tacks sharply to portside as it swings past downtown, making "south" an uncertain term.

South Detroit, eh?

Ask the experts on either side of the river, and they'll tell you what truly lies in that direction.

"It's called Windsor," said John Roach, communications officer for the mayor's office.

"That's a funny question," said Craig Pearson, managing editor of the Windsor Star. "We do."

Pearson figures he's been to Detroit more than 400 times in the 32 years he has lived in Windsor. He's a fan. And he's a fan of "Don't Stop Believin'," both musically and practically.

"The fact that the song refers to being born and raised in south Detroit," he said, "makes me think that at least subconsciously, other people see Windsor as part of the Detroit experience."

All directions being equal, Perry said, "south Detroit" sounds far better in a lyric than east or west Detroit. Besides, if he'd said East Detroit, he'd have to go back and change it to Eastpointe.

Perry, 73, left the band in 1987, tired of traveling and bickering. His bandmates thought he needed knee surgery and he thought that was a personal decision, thank you, not a personnel decision.

He went back to California, rode his motorcycle, gained 50 or 60 pounds, lost it, and recorded occasional new music, including a Christmas album. But he didn't tour, and he rarely does interviews.

He made an exception for the Library of Congress. That was meaningful, said Tucker, and so was what Perry wore.

"The thing that was striking to us was when he put on a suit and tie for a streaming interview," he said. "We interview lots of people, and they don't put on suits and ties."

Tucker, 58, is a former Detroit Free Press reporter and foreign correspondent. As Perry remembered peering down at a street scene after the concert at Cobo, Tucker realized he must have been staying on a high floor in the hotel at the Renaissance Center. He recognized the orange cast from the old streetlights Perry described as he spoke about another Detroit-inspired passage in the song.

"Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching in the night," it says. "Streetlights, people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night."

The images connected, Perry's voice enraptured, and 40 years later, the Library of Congress called.

Better than the Hall of Fame

The national registry's mission is to identify audio treasures worthy of preservation for their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance. Out of the 4 million pieces in the library's sound collection, 600 have been enrolled since 2002.

Among Journey's accompanists this year, Ronstadt was honored for the Spanish-language album she recorded that went double platinum and mainstream in 1987, Wu-Tang Clan for reasserting the strength of East Coast Rap in 1993, and Roosevelt for his presidential speeches from 1933 to 1945. Ernest Tubb, Duke Ellington, the radio call of Henry Aaron's record-setting 715th home run ... all have now been recognized as essential Americana.

Perry, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, told Tucker it's the greatest honor of his life.

As for south Detroit, technically there's a southernmost point of anything, even the North Pole ice covering. In Detroit, it's a sliver of the 48217 ZIP code area near I-75 between Melvindale and River Rouge.

That’s not what comes to Emily Gail’s mind when she hears “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

About the same time Journey filled Cobo Arena, Gail was plastering the city with her motto, “Say Nice Things About Detroit.”

Ask her where to find south Detroit and she says, “In people’s imaginations.”

That's where the band put it, after all. Whatever and wherever you think it is when you close your eyes, you're absolutely correct.

You can email Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com. Find him on Twitter at @nealrubin_fp.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' ' in National Song Registry