Why Did Journey’s Steve Perry Originally Say No to ‘The Sopranos’ Using ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’?
On June 10, 2007, creator David Chase shocked the world with his epic series finale of The Sopranos. However, just days before its airing, Chase and his team were still negotiating with the songwriting team behind Journey‘s “Don’t Stop Believin’” — lead singer Steve Perry, lead guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist/guitarist Jonathan Cain— about using the song to close the show.
As Perry has admitted in numerous interviews since, he was the hold out.
“I was the one that was holding out on approving that song only because I did not want to see the whole family get whacked,” Perry told Dan Rather in an extensive interview. “There were rumors that the last segment was going to be a serious one. You know David Chase had the potential, let’s put it that way. I just wanted to know what happens, but because it was the last one it was hush, hush and very tight.”
While Schon and Cain had already given their blessing to use the song, Perry was unsettled about it and couldn’t sign off without knowing Tony Soprano’s fate in the episode “Made in America;” he needed some sort of qualification on how the song would be used.
If the family got killed, Perry was not about to give approval to use the song
Unbeknown to any of the songwriters, the final scene would be set at the family’s favorite diner, Holsten’s, where Tony (Janes Gandolfini), Carmela (Edie Falco) and AJ (Robert Iler) gathered for a family dinner. Tony puts a quarter into the table’s jukebox and selects Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.’”
As the trio started noshing on those “best in the state” onion rings, waiting for Meadow (Jami-Lynn Sigler) as she struggled outside parallel parking her car, the song played. Questionable patrons milled about the restaurant, coming and going, adding to the anxiety of what fate awaited them. Just as Meadow ran into the restaurant and Tony looked up, the screen infamously went black, leaving the world to wonder if their TV shorted, and, ultimately, what really happened to Tony.
The episode would air on Sunday night. The Thursday before, Perry still hadn’t signed off.
As Perry explained, his publishers set out to get some type of answer to remedy the situation. “At 4 o’clock she calls me, and she says ‘OK, you have to swear not to tell nobody.’ I say, ‘I promise, because I can’t say yes unless you tell me.’ She tells me how it ends. She tells me nobody gets whacked. She tells the whole story with the cutting back and forth, this and that, and all. I got the whole thing. They did not tell me they went to black; they did not tell me that. But that’s OK because I, like the rest of the country, when it went to black, I [was like] what happened to my TV. It was really brilliant the way he cut it.”
So, it was Thursday, June 7, 2007, that Steve Perry finally approved the use of “Don’t Stop Believin’” for The Sopranos series finale.
“Don’t Stop Believin” was actually misspelled on screen
Credit: HBO/Screengrab
As Tony turns through the carousel of singles, he peruses through numerous songs: The Gatlin Bros “Got a Lot of Woman on His Hands,” Sawyer Brown’s “Somewhere in the Night” and “My Baby Drives a Buick,” Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days” and “Turn, Turn, Turn;” Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive” and “Just Because I Love You,” Bryan Adams’ “Victim of Love” and “Into the Fire;” Tony Bennett’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me” and “A Lonely Place;” Jay & The Americans’ “This Magic Moment” and “Since I Don’t Have You;” Tommy James & Shondells’ “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “I’m Alive;” Jimmy Dorsey’s “June Night” and “JD’s Boogie Woogie;” and Heart’s “Who Will You Run To” and “Magic Man.”
When he makes his selection, the jukebox actually reads “Don’t Stop Believing” with the second track for Journey being “Any Way You Want it.” The error is in the spelling of “Believing” versus “Believin.'” This was an error never caught by the production team.
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