As shown by the following ranked list of Journey album closing songs, the band was certainly hit-and-miss when it came to ending their studio projects.
Journey signed off their biggest-selling album with their biggest-selling single. Another final track provided a rare showcase for a departed and highly underrated early member. Steve Perry successors Arnel Pineda and Steve Augeri were given two of their very best showcase moments.
They reached new pop heights after Perry joined and then shot higher still when Jonathan Cain replaced co-founder Gregg Rolie into the ’80s. After Perry left, however, the power balance of the group shifted. Journey ended not one but two albums with wandering instrumentals from Neal Schon, who eventually became the only stalwart original left.
Tracks That Predicted the Future
As their career initially evolved, a generic rocker showed why adding Perry had become so important in the first place. Even after he arrived, another track showed how Journey would occasionally slump back into their original jam-band posture. Then again, a final song ended up saving an otherwise forgotten soundtrack.
Sometimes, the last word became the first hint at things to come. One of these album closing songs pointed to the musical rift that would end Journey’s classic era – and then lead directly to future excesses. Years later, they’d draw an LP to a close by previewing the direction Cain would go as he revived a long-dormant solo career.
READ MORE: Ranking the Top 35 Journey Videos
Here’s a ranked look back at Journey’s album closing songs, from the pre-Perry era through the band’s platinum-selling superstardom and into their modern-era recordings.
No. 16. “Venus”
From: Eclipse (2011)
As Neal Schon consolidated his latter-day power, his long-dreamt-of goal of a guitar-focused Journey album – on hold since 1977’s Next – finally came to fruition. The good news: This freed frontman Arnel Pineda, a former cover-band singer who Schon found on YouTube, from the trap of sounding exactly like Steve Perry. The bad news: Eclipse ended with Schon simply noodling around. This goes on for three-and-a-half minutes.
No. 15. “The Journey (Revelation)”
From: Revelation (2008)
Same, except this time, it was for five-and-a-half minutes. For those who wondered what Journey would sound like as a boring fusion-jazz band.
No. 14. “Lady Luck”
From: Evolution (1979)
Journey ended the ’70s by joining a number of artists who have sung tracks called “Lady Luck,” including Deep Purple, Rod Stewart and David Lee Roth. Come to think of it, none of those are really any good either.
No. 13. “Karma”
From: Next (1977)
The last pre-Steve Perry album ends with a grinding, unfocused rocker featuring Neal Schon on vocals. Changes were coming.
No. 12. “Homemade Love”
From: Departure (1980)
Journey had discovered a newfound chart success with “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” and “Any Way You Want It,” but they were still prone to longing looks back to their earliest musical excesses. This sludgy, clumsily salacious song couldn’t have sounded more out of place on Departure. Positioning “Homemade Love” as the album-closing song made even less sense.
No. 11. “Beautiful as You Are”
From: Freedom (2022)
Pineda didn’t write “Beautiful as You Are,” which was credited to the co-producing team of Schon, Jonathan Cain and Narada Michael Walden, but he just owns the lyric. Over the quieter first minute-and-a-half, we hear a singer racing out of Perry’s considerable shadow into his own spotlight. Of course, “Beautiful as You Are” then quickly winds up into your typical Journey song – with your typical Journey sound. It also goes on way too long – but those initial moments almost make it all worthwhile.
No. 10. “Trial by Fire”
From: Trial by Fire (1996)
This track made direct reference to verses in 2 Corinthians, underscoring once again how Cain’s long-dormant songwriting partnership with Perry was reborn through a shared interest in scripture. Something sparked within Cain. He’d go on to release a series of albums beginning with 2016’s What God Wants to Hear made up exclusively of faith-based songs.
READ MORE: Ranking Every Journey Album
No. 9. “Rubicon”
From: Frontiers (1983)
This song drove a seemingly permanent wedge in the band. Schon was playing “Rubicon,” he later told The New York Times, when Perry came over and turned down his amplifiers. “They want to hear the voice,” Schon remembered Perry saying. “That was the start of it for me.” They put out only two more albums together, and it took 13 years. After that, Schon’s guitar became a more dominant voice.
No. 8. “Mystery Mountain”
From: Journey (1975)
“The way I look at the early Journey stuff is, if we played that now, we’d be out with Phish, or the [Dave] Matthews Band,” Gregg Rolie said in Journey: Worlds Apart. “We were a great jam band.” Exhibit A: their trippy debut album-closing “Magic Mountain,” written by Rolie and early rhythm guitarist George Tickner with help from bassist Ross Valory’s wife.
No. 7. “Beyond the Clouds”
From: Generations (2005)
A slow burner co-written by Perry successor Steve Augeri in his final outing with the band, “Beyond the Clouds” illustrates why he was such a good initial fit. Augeri’s ability to elevate, as this track zooms into the stratosphere, and then to wind down into a whispery vulnerability recalls a Certain Other Steve. This wouldn’t prove to be his principal strength, but it mattered at the time.
No. 6. “Little Girl”
From: Dream, After Dream (1980)
“Little Girl” was the most Journey-sounding thing on this LP, which isn’t really part of the band’s catalog since it’s otherwise filled with incidental music for a now-forgotten foreign film. Elsewhere, the instrumentals provide an untimely restatement of their old penchant for prog and fusion, considering Journey were already on a Perry-sparked pop-chart roll. Unsurprisingly, Dream After Dream disappeared without a trace once Journey issued their multi-multi-platinum smash Escape a year later. Unfortunately, this too-often-overlooked song has since became known — if it was known at all — simply as a B-side to the “Open Arms” single.
No. 5. “I’m Gonna Leave You”
From: Look Into the Future (1976)
George Tickner joined Journey after a stint in the San Francisco psych-rock band Frumious Bandersnatch with future Journey bandmate Ross Valory, but he wasn’t around long. He left behind this intriguingly offbeat 5/4 shuffle for fans to ponder what might have been.
No. 4. “We Will Meet Again”
From: Arrival (2001)
Deen Castronovo‘s inventively layered rhythm gives “We Will Meet Again” a distinct character among Journey’s more anthemic-leaning tunes, setting the stage for a moment of controlled fury from Augeri. It all builds toward a sweeping vista reminiscent of the late producer Roy Thomas Baker-helmed Journey songs like “Winds of March” and “Opened the Door,” a welcome development indeed. As with those two tracks, “We Will Meet Again” serves as an emotionally resonant side-closing moment.
No. 3. “Why Can’t This Night Go on Forever”
From: Raised on Radio (1986)
Journey began attempting to ape their own big ballad style well before Steve Perry departed. Written in tribute to their fans, “Why Can’t This Night Go on Forever” is defined by its overt ambition to echo swooning hits like “Open Arms” and “Faithfully.” That it succeeds anyway is a credit to the strength of performances by Schon and Perry.
No. 2. “Opened the Door”
From: Infinity (1978)
The last song on the first album to feature Perry, “Open the Door” begins like every gorgeous, ear-wormy love song they ever hit with a few years later. After Perry’s initial three minutes, however, Gregg Rolie joins in a huge vocal bridge (“yeah, you opened …”), and from there Schon and company are loosened from those binding conventions. Drummer Aynsley Dunbar, on his final recording date with Journey, sets a thunderous cadence, and Schon powers the song — and this career-turning album — to its quickly elevating conclusion.
No. 1. “Open Arms”
From: Escape (1981)
If you dislike power ballads, blame Jonathan Cain. He brought this seminal example of the genre to Journey after John Waite, the frontman in Cain’s former band the Babys, rejected an early version. Schon didn’t really want “Open Arms,” either. But Perry intervened, and they turned it into a soaring paean to renewal. Oh, and Journey’s highest-charting single ever.
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
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