Don't Stop Believin'
The Mental Health Anthem & a Phone Call to Dad
Journey, 1981
Some songs live on because they’re catchy. Others because they touch a nerve. And then there are songs like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” that do both, and can sometimes also moonlight as accidental therapists.
Let’s set the scene: A small-town girl. A city boy. Both on midnight trains. Already, we’re in the emotional trenches. These aren’t just characters in a rock ballad; they’re metaphors in jeans and leather jackets. They’re all of us (especially in the eighties with jeans and leather jackets)—drifting, quietly hoping what we find at the next station might just make life make sense.
Strangers waiting / up and down the boulevard / their shadows searching in the night
There it is.
A lyric that paints loneliness with neon lights. And maybe that’s the brilliance of the song—it doesn’t sugarcoat the ache. It simply acknowledges that we’re all out here, wandering boulevards (some metaphorical, some paved) in the middle of the night, with shadows heavier than we let on.
But the lyric that lingers?
The one we all belt in cars or half-whisper when life feels a bit off?
Don’t stop believin’ / Hold on to that feelin’
It’s more than motivational fluff—it’s actually encouraging a neurological process. When we hear familiar music that we emotionally connect with, our brain lights up like a concert stage. The limbic system, the amygdala, and the hippocampus all become activated (Menon & Levitin, 2005). That’s why one chorus can send you back in time and help you hold it together in the present.
But here’s where it gets even more poetic…
In 1981, Journey was in a strange place. Their lineup had changed. They weren’t the critics’ favorites. And their newest keyboardist, Jonathan Cain, had just moved to L.A. after years of struggling in the music business. During the struggles leading up to this new moment, Cain had also been in this very position personally. Back then, he was broke, discouraged, and ready to quit. So he called his father, desperate for advice.
And his dad said four words: “Don’t stop believin’, Jon.”
Cain scribbled that phrase in a notebook and held onto it. Now, all these months later, that phrase became the hook of a song he’d co-write with Steve Perry and Neal Schon—a song that took all their fragments, doubts, and midnight trains and turned them into one of the most enduring anthems of all time (Cain, 2018).
That lyric wasn’t born in a studio. It was born in a moment of fear, of almost giving up. And born in conversation because someone was willing to reach out for help and someone else was willing to answer the call and offer it. This all means it’s not just a lyric—it’s a lived truth. A hand-me-down from one discouraged heart to another. In mental health, we call this universality—that deep sigh of relief when you realize you’re not alone in your struggle. Group therapy hinges on this (Yalom & Leszcz, 2020), and so does good music! It names the ache, provides good company, and then dares to offer hope.
So yeah, “Don’t stop believin’” isn’t just a power ballad—it’s a three-word therapy session.
And no, music doesn’t replace medication or therapy or the real work of healing.
But it does often buy us time.
Sometimes, it’s the thing that gets us through the night, or the thing that makes the night feel a little less lonely. The songs that we love live deep down in the bones of our memories, and the lyrics bubble up, on purpose, just when we need them. Like a liturgy.
So maybe the next time life goes sideways—or just stalls completely—we should remember Jon Cain, sitting with a phone in one hand and fear in the other.
And remember his dad’s voice on the other line, saying what all of us need to hear at some point:
Don’t stop believin’.
Even when it’s faint.
Maybe especially when it is.
And maybe that’s enough to get us to our own next verse.
Credits:
Jordan, Donald. 2025. Pathways Records. Music and Mental Health.