This topic comes easy.  Laura and I have been married for forty-eight years.  She is my best friend and friendship is a hint of eternity, a bond that seems to defeat the erosion of time, growing better and stronger year by year.

This song by Journey is heard often on the radio.  I think about it deeply with each hearing.  If I am driving, I will tear up on occasion as the poetic description resonates with my experience of life, and I am positively swept into the emotion of the building melody into the great crescendo of the chorus.  The song is a triumph, a statement of the purity of an ideal,–even if life sometimes fails to be this apogee of perfection.

I always think of Laura, of how far we have come, how much we have experienced together, and how much each has helped the other to adapt.  I cannot imagine life without her.  Yes, romance is a part of the zeitgeist of the relationship, but a reciprocity of purpose and a joint discovery of what lies on the horizon is there as well.

This song is and always will be dedicated to Laura.

Faithfully

Highway run
Into the midnight sun
Wheels go round and round
You’re on my mind

Restless hearts
Sleep alone tonight
Sending all my love along the wire
They say that the road
Ain’t no place to start a family
Right down the line it’s been you and me
And loving a music man
Ain’t always what it’s supposed to be
Oh Girl
You stand by me
I’m forever yours
Faithfully

Circus life
Under the big top world
We all need the clowns to make us smile

Through space and time
Always another show
Wondering where I am lost without you
And being apart ain’t easy on this love affair
Two strangers learn to fall in love again
I get the joy of rediscovering you
Oh girl
You stand by me
I’m forever yours
Faithfully

The story of the writing of the song is worth telling.  Thanks again to Wikipedia.

The song was written by Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain. He began writing the song with only the lyrics “highway run into the midnight sun” on a paper napkin while on a tour bus headed to Saratoga Springs, New York. The next day, he completed the song in full in only a half-hour. Cain connected the song’s quick genesis to his Christian faith: “I’d never had a song come to me so quickly […] it was anointed, supernatural.” Neal Schon also commented on the song’s inception: “[Cain] told me he got the melody out of a dream. I wish something like that would happen to me.” Cain finished composing the song on a backstage grand piano at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, where the band performed it for the first time. According to the liner notes in Journey’s Time3 compilation, Cain paid tribute to road manager Pat Morrow and stage manager Benny Collins when he wrote “we all need the clowns to make us smile.” He characterized the song as a “road song,” remarking, “You know I’m being a good dog out here — don’t worry about it.

The song describes the relationship of a “music man” with his lover. The difficulties of raising and maintaining a family and staying faithful while touring are brought up. However, he suggests that he gets the “joy of rediscovering” her, and insists “I’m forever yours… Faithfully.” Cain wrote this song about the difficulty of being a married man as well as a touring musician. Soon after the song’s release, he and his wife divorced.

If, by chance, you love this song here is a more recent rendition performed by the gentleman who replaced Steve Perry as vocalist.  CLICK HERE .