Friday Tunes: Faithfully

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Journey’s “Faithfully”. Journey's greatest successes came when they wrote songs about the everyday experiences of regular people (think "Don't Stop Believing" and "Be Good to Yourself"). The song was also the first video with a "road" theme.

Written by keyboardist Jonathan Cain—who was divorced from the wife he wrote the song about only a few years after it became a hit—Faithfully examines the challenges of mobile work (in this case, for musicians) on relationships and family life.

They say that the road
Ain't no place to start a family

Questions of separation and fidelity often haunt both mobile workers and the families they leave behind.

Restless hearts
Sleep alone tonight
Sendin' all my love
Along the wire

Two colleagues at the U of A have been examining the experiences of camp workers (i.e., those who operate work camps) in Fort McMurray and they gave a fascinating pair of presentations in Ottawa in June about the pressures of separation

The periods of reconnection are often short and uncomfortable as the workers re-appear in family life for a short period of time, upsetting the practical and emotional routines of everyone else leading, inevitably to their departure back to camp life.

And being apart ain't easy on this love affair
Two strangers learn to fall in love again

For some families, the pressures were so great that both partners decided to become camp workers so they could be closer together (not unlike Steve Perry’s decision to bring his then-girlfriend on tour and travel separately from the band). Yet this brings its own pressures as schedules and space away from camp don’t always exist.



Highway run
Into the midnight sun
Wheels go round and round
You're on my mind
Restless hearts
Sleep alone tonight
Sendin' 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 lovin' 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

Oh, oh, oh, oh
Faithfully, I'm still yours
I'm forever yours
Ever yours, faithfully

-- Bob Banetson