When I was in eighth grade, the very first song we learned and performed in choir that year was Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
You might be thinking, so what? Doesn’t every middle school choir learn that song?
But here’s the thing: my eighth-grade year started in September, 1981.
“Don’t Stop Believin'” hadn’t even been released as a single yet, and it had only been available on album since the spring.
That’s how quickly Journey’s signature song captured popular tastes and imaginations. Our choir director must have felt pretty smug when “Don’t Stop Believin'” started rocketing up the charts after we started performing it at school assemblies.
But its initial chart success (#9 on the Billboard Hot 100) doesn’t even begin to convey the enduring popularity of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It has charted again and again across the world, both in its original incarnation and in a cover version performed by the cast of Glee. (At one point in the U.K., the song held both the #5 and #6 chart positions simultaneously, with the Glee cover ignominiously one notch higher than the original.)
To this day, “Don’t Stop Believin'” remains the number one paid digital download of a 20th century song. Not bad for a song that (like Bruce’s greatest hit) was essentially an afterthought when the band decided they needed one more song for their upcoming album.
Everyone knows “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which makes it a perfect ensemble number when you’ve got an all-star talent line-up on stage. Which is exactly the situation Bruce Springsteen found himself in at Sting’s annual Rainforest Foundation benefit show in 2010, and then again almost a decade later.
Both the 2010 and 2019 events had an eighties theme, and both featured “Don’t Stop Believin'” as the ensemble closing number.
In 2010, Bruce traded lead vocals with Sting, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Debbie Harry, and Shirley Bassey–an absolutely astounding, one-time-only line-up.
In 2019, Bruce stayed in the background while Ada Dyer took the lead vocal, but his backing vocals are present along with Sting, John Mellencamp, James Taylor, The Eurythmics, Ricky Martin, Bob Geldof, DMC, and more.
If you can’t pick out Bruce’s backing vocals in the clip above, don’t worry. I was there that night, and I couldn’t either–like everyone else in the room, I was too busy singing at the top of my lungs.
After all, I’d been practicing since eighth grade.
Don’t Stop Believin’
First performed: May 13, 2010 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: December 9, 2019 (New York City, NY)
Some songs are just irresistible. Sounds like you had a
“hip” choir teacher in your eighth-grade year (lucky you) and your choir had as much fun performing the song 1981 as you did in 2019. That’s great! (Bruce really buys into the 2010 version.)