Songoftheday 4/1/12 - Softly you whisper, you're so sincere, how could our love be so blind..

Journey - "Open Arms"
from the album Escape (1981)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (6 weeks)

Today's Song of the Day was the blueprint for all "power ballads". Rock bands have of course dabbled in slow tracks, like Kiss' "Beth" and more recently at the time Foreigner's "Waiting For A Girl Like You". However, nobody could bring the lighters out like Steve Perry's Celine-ish wail on "Open Arms".

"Open Arms" was the third single released from Escape (after "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Who's Crying Now"), and almost didn't make the album, due to guitarist Neal Schon's aversion to the song (as was co-writer Jonathan Cain's former band the Babys leader John Waite). However after the reaction to this song, every rock band seemed to require a mushy and overblown love ballad on each album. Journey themselves repeated themselves on their subsequent album with "Faithfully" (with close results). What this all did, though, is open up hard rock music to a whole new audience - women. Not just groupie chicks, but girls that wouldn't touch a Led Zeppelin record, but would fall for a lovelorn caterwaul any day. And hey, it brought back the waltz time signature to the prom...



Later on, Perry's female equivalents Mariah Carey and Celine Dion each recorded a version (Mariah's became an international hit), as well as fodder for American Idol hopefuls (most notably Clay Aiken).



But you just can't beat Perry's voice at its peak, and the emotional highpoint of my favorite Journey record.


Next up tomorrow: more chicks that play guitars....