An Admission of Guilt

I occasionally listen to a Journey song. There, I said it. I’m not proud but I felt I had to admit to my crime. This morning, on the way to work, “Stone in Love” came on the radio. I did my due diligence and changed to all my other preset stations but I was alone on an island. The other stations were all playing commercials so I had no choice, right?

In my defense, your honor, Journey was huge when I was in high school. You couldn’t turn on the radio without being assaulted by the strange mixture of Neal Schon’s crunchy guitar and the chirpy melodies of Steve Perry (it was rumored there were other members of the band but only anecdotal evidence exists). When I hear one of their tunes now I always feel like I’m 17 again.

I was usually listening to Aerosmith or Ted Nugent on my stereo. Maybe I was watching Men at Work or INXS videos on MTV. Eventually I listened to a lot of heavy metal: Black Sabbath, Metallica, Witchfinder General, etc. But  . . . and this is painful . . . I had at least one Journey album. Ahhh! My spleen! Oh, I didn’t think that admission would hurt so badly.

Yes, one of their albums was in my collection and, yes, I would sometimes, not often, but occasionally, every-now-and-then, when the moon was high and the demons urged me to, maybe once or twice every few months, not every day, at a time when no one else was around, when the mood struck me, now and again, when I was reaching for Jag Panzer and accidentally picked up the Journey sleeve, I would put the record on.

So that’s that. I sometimes listen to a Journey song. I realize that all the black metal in the world cannot erase this stain from my musical record, but hell, I also like Sade and Loverboy, so, whatever.