"Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" is a song performed by
Journey, recorded for their album ''
Frontiers'' and released as a single in January 1983. It peaked at number eight for six consecutive weeks on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, and spent four weeks at number one on the
Top Tracks chart. The song is also well known for its use in the films ''
Yes Man'', ''
Tron: Legacy'', and in
season four of ''
Stranger Things
''Stranger Things'' is an American television series created by the Duffer brothers, Duffer Brothers for Netflix. Produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment, the Stranger Things season 1, first season was released on N ...
''.
To accompany the song on MTV, the band shot its first concept video. It was a difficult experience for a variety of reasons, and received mixed reviews from critics. The video was recorded in
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
.
Background and writing
The song was written and composed in 1982 during the ''
Escape'' tour. It is not certain exactly when it was first performed live. Some sources claim that the first live performance of the song was in 1982 at the ''
Day on the Green'' concert, where singer
Steve Perry
Stephen Ray Perry (born January 22, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer and frontman of the rock band Journey during their most successful years from 1977 to 1987, and again from 1995 to 1998. He wrote/co-wrote ...
told the crowd, "We just wrote this song about two weeks ago." However,
bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as ''bootlegging''. Recordings may be copied and traded ...
s exist of performances at least a month earlier at Chicago's Rosemont Horizon, where Perry also says the song was two weeks old.
There were some minor differences in the lyrics on this live debut compared to the final version found on ''Frontiers.'' In a 2008 interview, guitarist
Neal Schon
Neal Joseph Schon (born February 27, 1954) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder and lead guitarist for the rock band Journey. He is the last original member to remain throughout the group's history. He was a memb ...
recalled the first time it was played live:
"Usually we don't write songs that far in advance of an album," observed
Jonathan Cain
Jonathan Leonard Friga (born February 26, 1950), known professionally as Jonathan Cain, is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the keyboardist and rhythm guitarist for Journey. He has also worked with the Babys an ...
, the band's keyboardist, as Andy Secher, in his article "Adventures in Frontierland," published in the June 1983 issue of ''
Hit Parader
''Hit Parader'' was an American music magazine that operated between 1942 and 2008. A monthly publication, it focused on rock and pop music in general until the 1970s, when its focus began turning to hard rock and heavy metal. By the early 198 ...
'' Magazine, quoted him. "But on that occasion, Steve
erryand I were just working an idea backstage and it all came together. He was working on a bass and I had a guitar, and we just worked out the melody that night and the lyrics the next afternoon. Sometimes you can get lucky and have a song fall together like that."
Schon said that the song was, like many other songs by the band, "
Motown
Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau ...
mixed with
R&B and blues ... that's pretty much where 'Separate Ways' is coming from. It's got a heavier guitar than an R&B song, but I think that's what makes it sound like Journey."
Cain said the same thing in 1983:
Music video
The
music video
A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...
for "Separate Ways" was the first single for which the band shot a choreographed video: previous videos were performances that were taped and edited,
expanded with "
Faithfully" to include a montage of the band on tour shot by a crew from
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces advertisement film, commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentary film, documentaries ...
. Steve Perry had been very opposed to making a choreographed video. "He'd always say, 'We're performers, we're entertainers, but we're not actors,'" recalled Cain. "And we were ''not'' a very photogenic band."
In the video, which used the shorter single version, the band performs the song while a young woman in a white jacket and black leather skirt walks along the wharf. At some points, Perry and the other members of the band perform right next to her, and seem to be singing to her, but she remains oblivious. In the ending, she is seen in a bed, wearing headphones. John Diaz, the producer, explains that the idea was that she had dreamed the video after falling asleep while listening to the song. "Our concepts were so inane."
The video is now infamous
for the scenes where the band is pretending to play non-existent instruments, although they do also play their real instruments (including Cain playing his
Roland Jupiter-8
The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.
The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3,300 units have ...
"up-the-wall"). It features over 50 camera moves with choreography by
Art and Creative Services.
It was reported that on the first day of shooting, there was a cold breeze coming off the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
next to the wharf. This made filming all the more difficult on the band and Perry, who was seen retreating to his camper to keep warm.
This state of affairs was complicated by the presence of Perry's then-girlfriend, Sherrie Swafford, on the set. Not only had the band been told that they could not bring wives or girlfriends to the shoot, the other members hated Swafford and her effect on Perry, which created considerable tension. She was reportedly very jealous of the young woman in the video, local model Margaret Olmstead,
and kept demanding Olmstead be taken out of it. "There was a big kicking and screaming session," Cain recalled later. "Sherrie was giving Steve a very bad time about that girl." Perry had also just gotten his hair cut short, which Cain found inexplicable since the singer's previous hairstyle had been "rockin'."
"Here's a band at their commercial peak," says
Adam Dubin, director of many well-received videos, "and some idiot decided to film them on a wharf and--here's the worst part--instead of giving them instruments, let them mime playing imaginary instruments. The director should be shot. And the manager should be shot for allowing his band to be put in this position."
A decade later, the video was heavily criticized on the MTV animated series ''
Beavis and Butt-Head
''Beavis and Butt-Head'' is an American Adult animation, adult animated Animated sitcom, sitcom created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, Stupi ...
,'' with the titular characters, both voiced by
Mike Judge
Michael Craig Judge (born October 17, 1962) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for being the creator of the animated television series ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' (1993–1997, 2011, 2022–present). He ...
, opining that the video "sucks" and was "horrible" and ridiculing Perry and Schon's fashion sense. This greatly upset Cain, since he felt Journey's videos had helped make MTV. He called the band's manager repeatedly to ask how they could stop the channel from reairing the segment.
In 1999 MTV chose it as 13th on its list of the 25 Worst Videos of All Time.
"I'm at a loss to explain that video," said Cain. "I will never live down those air keyboards. No matter what else I've done in my career, sooner or later people find a way to ask me about the 'Separate Ways' video."
''Stranger Things'' version
For the
fourth season of the TV series ''
Stranger Things
''Stranger Things'' is an American television series created by the Duffer brothers, Duffer Brothers for Netflix. Produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment, the Stranger Things season 1, first season was released on N ...
'', which has used songs from the 1980s on its soundtrack, Bryce Miller and Alloy Tracks remixed the song. A fan of the show, Steve Perry heard the remix and told Miller and Troy MacCubbin how much he liked it. Perry told ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', "I was stunned at how cool it was." Soon after that Perry suggested an extended version which he worked on with Miller.
Daughtry version
In 2023, American rock band
Daughtry and
Lzzy Hale
Elizabeth Mae "Lzzy" Hale IV (born October 10, 1983) is an American musician. She serves as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of hard rock band Halestorm, which she co-founded with her brother Arejay Hale in 1997.
Early life
Hale was born O ...
of
Halestorm
Halestorm is an American Rock music, rock band from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, consisting of lead vocalist and guitarist Lzzy Hale, drummer Arejay Hale, guitarist Joe Hottinger, and bassist Josh Smith. Siblings Lzzy and Arejay founded the band in ...
covered the song to mark the 40th anniversary of the original song.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
See also
*
Journey discography
*
List of number-one mainstream rock hits (United States)
References
External links
*
{{authority control
1982 songs
1983 singles
Journey (band) songs
Songs written by Steve Perry
Songs written by Jonathan Cain
Song recordings produced by Mike Stone (record producer)
Columbia Records singles
Songs about heartache