{Unpopular} {Opinion}: It’s Time to Stop Believin’ in “Don’t Stop Believin'”

The way I see it, there are two roads to take when you realize something you can’t stand is universally beloved. The first is to hide. Take that deep, dark dislike and lock it away where no one will ever know it exists. You will be spared from a pop culture gulag if you can shut your big trap and not reveal your secret.

If I had a secret hiding place like this, it might be full of adversarial hot takes about Fight Club, Peyton Manning, internet cat videos, and Five Guys burgers. If.

Then, there is the other option. Standing up proud and shouting “THIS THING SUCKS” from a rooftop. This is the path of choice when you feel that yearning to enlighten the simpleton troglodytes out there.

Well guess what? (Climbs onto the roof, indignant.) You’ve been duped, tricked, incepted, whatever. “Don’t Stop Believin’” is not a good song and needs to go away.

Like the breakdown of any important equation, allow me to show my work.

Let’s start with the most obvious criticism. “Don’t Stop Believin’” is wildly overplayed. To know the song is to really know the song because it has more exposure and saturation than your favorite Instagram filter. Classic rock radio, tailgates, cover bands, karaoke bars, and sports arenas. It could serve as the official song for fake nostalgia, oversinging, sweating, fist-pumping, and expressing yourself uniquely in the exact same way everyone else is. I challenge you to remember a time when you heard the song without someone in the background claiming “OMG, that’s MY SONG!!!!”

And, sure, the lyrics are remarkably easy to sing, but they also have the cohesiveness of refrigerator magnet poetry. Sing along if you know the words, and I know that you do:

Streetlight people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night

Workin’ hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin’ anything to roll the dice
Just one more time.

Read those again. What does that even mean? What are streetlight people? Have you ever found an emotion that was hiding? Do the last two lines refer to someone addicted to casino craps games who doesn’t have the patience to let others throw?

Also, I just realized that Journey has no time for full gerundin’ their verbs.

It’s not just the lyrics, either. “Don’t Stop Believin’” is also a musical disappointment, featuring an almost good enough guitar solo. Sixteen seconds. Just long enough for your pudgy white friend to shred air guitar on the dance floor without gettin’ winded. Are we countin’ 16 second riffs as solos? Is it an interlude? I’ll leave those calls to the decisionmakers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And maybe you don’t think Journey should be heralded as rock royalty. Fine. I don’t agree with you, but I can accept your elitist point. What we can all agree on, is that their music is thoroughly non-threatenin’ and that without “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey’s legacy is not likely to go on and on and on and on.

Maybe my problem is that I like Journey too much (which I concede is highly likely, though I will not apologize for it). And sure, as a Journey fan, it is annoyin’ for everyone to know the band by their seventh best song. I submit the following, for the record:

1. “Separate Ways”
2. “Faithfully”
3. “Wheel in the Sky”
4. “Open Arms”
5. “Ask the Lonely”
6. “Only the Young”

And not to get all Kanye on you, Imma let you finish, but “Faithfully” had one of the greatest videos of all time.

My apologies for distractin’ you with that emotional, semi-mustachioed look at life on the road before hittin’ you with my biggest qualm.

I mostly developed my salty taste for “Don’t Stop Believin’” because I have been Pavlov-ed into recognizin’ this. When you hear those first measures of piano, the good time you’re having is almost over.

Think about the instances when you are most likely to hear “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It’s the go-to last song at a weddin’, the ballad that accompanies lights up at a bar, or the soundtrack of the last scene of The Sopranos. No matter what, something that you are really enjoyin’ is about to come screechin’ to a halt.

In that sense, “Don’t Stop Believin’” has become a harsh reminder that good times… end. The best you can do is start a “one more song” chant or hope your cable system didn’t just implode. It is Debbie Downer, persongified.

Takin’ down “Don’t Stop Believin’” is a monumental task. It depends on each and every one of us to stop requestin’ it, stop wastin’ TouchTunes plays (even though it’s only 1 credit), and for god’s sake, stop inflatin’ its empty words with value.

Together we can stop believin’ in “Don’t Stop Believin’.”