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Some of the rock genre's greatest ballads were born from heartache, and it was especially true for one of Journey's signature hits, "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)," that came to life while on the road.
It's not surprising that life on the road and being one of the '80s biggest rock bands would lead to marital tensions. During Journey's 1982 Escape tour, guitarist Neal Schon and bassist Ross Valory were going through caustic divorces. Their bandmates were looking for a way to focus on the positive aspects of the situation when Jonathan Cain and Steve Perry began working on "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."
“Usually we don’t write songs that far in advance of an album,” said Cain in 1983, according to American Songwriter. “But on that occasion, Steve and 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."
Cain and Perry soon presented the track to the rest of the band with lyrics about an ending relationship, but still being hopeful of finding love again. According to reports, the band began piecing together the track during soundcheck, and fans first heard the track live during their Day on the Green concert. Facts on whether or not it's true differ.
"It doesn't matter where we put this song because it has always had a strong effect on the audience, all the way back to the first time we played it—before it was even recorded. It was written on tour and we threw it in the set to see how it would go down. The audience had an amazing reaction to it without even knowing what it was," said Schon about the track.
The track would end up becoming a major hit for Journey when it was released as a single and as part of their 1983 album, Frontiers. It spent four weeks at No.1 on Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and spent six consecutive weeks at No.8 on the Hot 100 chart. Its music video also gained attention as one of their first choreographed videos that has been tagged as one of the worst.
"Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" would be revived in popularity when it became a hit theme for Tron: Legacy and was used as a remix in Stranger Things Season 4. Perry commented that he was "absolutely stunned by the feeling that I got from it. Because it was so organic and analogy, and I was stunned that the vocal was emotionally that good.”
Its use in the Netflix series led frontman Chris Daughtry to release his own cover alongside Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale. It just so happened that their release of the song coincided with the 40th anniversary of the original track.
Related: 1979 Soft Rock Ballad, Written About an Affair, Became a Heartbreak Anthem
