Don't Stop Believin

This Week's Song - Don't Stop Believin - Journey. Steve Perry, Jonathan Cain, and Neil Schon wrote this anthem.

We all have dreams. Mine included NBA stardom and headlining a Rock N’ Roll tour. Those dreams died an early and predictable death. Pryor’s can’t jump and we have little, if any, musical talent. A shame, given my love of both basketball and music.

Piano Man

The first album I ever bought was Journey’s Escape. I knew I had to have it when I heard the keyboard intro on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 in 1981. I was 12. I’d listen to “the countdown” from start to finish on Sundays. I was in love with two or three girls at the time, and I’d write down the name of love songs that I just had to have. After I purchased the album I’d sit in the floor and play Don’t Stop Believing over and over, wishing I knew how to play it on the piano. I fantasized of taking to the stage and my seat at the piano, adjusting the microphone, and starting into that beautiful intro. My voice would pierce the crowd and roll into the night, leaving my peers, and especially those girls, dumbfounded, starstruck and hopelessly in love. When I would jump into the second verse…”A singer in a smokey room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume..” something in them would break and unalterably change, making them forever mine.

Then, one night, near the end of middle school, I heard my friend playing the song on a piano. I immediately asked Bennett Millikan to teach me the introduction. He did. It is the only song I ever learned. I never took a lesson, only playing the Journey song over and over on our family's piano to the annoyance of my little brother and sister. The song became a staple of American Rock music. It still has a strong presence on radio and television, having enjoyed a revival with such shows as Glee. Journey was just inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Whenever I hear the song, I smile, but I’ve long given up on living out my fantasy of becoming a rock star. I’m 48, can’t sing a lick, and know only the intro to the one song. The dream is dead... Or so I thought.

The breeze coming off of the bay creeps through the open doors of Rum Runners making the water-downed-overpriced liquor just fine and the average musical talent seem special. The bar was filled with people my age - some married, some not, and some not entirely sure. All come to drink, some to dance, and most to sing along with two guys playing adjacent pianos. The crowd includes tables of women on “girl’s trips” and bar stools occupied by men on "golf trips." The confines of that bar are a study of the middle-aged. At their core, they are all the same kids in the old rickety gym with the lights down low, waiting for the DJ to play the right song in the Spring of their 8th grade year. The place was packed the other night. I was one of the golf-trip guys on a bar stool as the two piano players were going back and forth playing SEC fight songs and racking up tips. Though the place was packed, there were only a few on the dance floor. I told my friends I’d had enough and was going home. I really didn’t want to go to the bar in the first place, but I was the golf trip host. Bennett Millikan, who'd been one of my best friends since Kindergarten, said “you still know that Journey song.” I told him that I would always be able to play it, mistakenly inflating my musical skills, certainly not thinking that he would approach the stage and offer up $100 to the tip jar to have me play a song for the crowd. I would later find out that it took more than $100. My friend told them I was Senator Eugene Pryor of the great state of Tennessee. I have creative friends.

When I heard them call for "Senator Pryor," fear shot through me like lightning. There were two reasons. First, I certainly know that I possess no musical or singing talent, but, second, and more importantly, I am also aware that I am genetically incapable of turning down an opportunity to perform regardless of the embarrassment that most certainly follows. It is a curse, but it sure makes me fun in a bar. I was scared to death as I approached the baby grand but displayed an outward false confidence all lawyers know from their early days in the courtroom. I was, after all, chasing a dream. One of the musicians got up and offered his seat to the young Senator. I leaned over to the gentleman who was seated at the occupied piano and whispered, "I only know the intro. You are gonna have to do the heavy lifting.” He smiled and asked what key I would be playing it in. “I have no idea what that means,” I said. He laughed and said, “Show me where you put your fingers.” I did. Then, I took my seat, adjusted the microphone and looked out over the expectant crowd. Suddenly, I was where I was born to be. I gave an eloquent introduction, mentioning my mini-Casio keyboard I got on my 13th birthday, 1981, and love. I filled the crowd with great anticipation with a final plea to "grab the guy or girl you've been making eye contact with all night and get on the dance floor." Talking is easy. Then, without a moment of hesitation (never hesitate - commit), I began to play. In public. The piano. To a packed house.

Author (far right) next to his piano teacher (Bennett Millikan)
Mrs. Iroff's Class 1973 (The great Barry Plumlee far left)

My first notes of the introduction were flawless and partially drowned out by the crowd exploding onto the dance floor. The introduction to that song produces a chemical reaction that is part nostalgia and part aphrodisiac in people of my vintage. The other piano player jumped in and the man who was supposed to be playing my piano took a seat at a drum set, and we were off to the races. I quickly realized the other guy on piano was pretty good. I was so focused on playing the song correctly and keeping up with him that I didn’t sing a lick of the first verse. He did the singing. It became clear I couldn’t keep up the pace of the song. By the time we reached the second verse I was barely playing the piano at all. My playing wasn’t good, but I realized something amazing - my playing was completely inconsequential. The sound created by the first piano and the drums completely masked my ineptness! I realized I could completely stop playing and it would not effect the song. Even better was the fact everyone thought I was playing! I was getting all to the credit without an ounce of contribution...well, I do have unbelievable stage presence. So, quite naturally, as the time for the second verse arrived, my confidence level was sky high! "We" sounded great!!! My time was at hand. I focused on appearing to play the piano and leaned into the microphone, winked at a cute girl on the front row with her hands raised high above her head, and belted out, “A singer in a smokey room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume…”

When the song ended, I ran my hands up and down the keys, Jerry Lee Lewis style, and walked off stage to a standing ovation. Bennett, my kindergarten sidekick and piano teacher, high-fived me. I smiled at the piano player, who was laughing, and made my way to the door, knowing both the exhilaration and adoration that keeps Mick Jagger coming back and the shameful lack of guilt that allowed Milli Vanilli to sleep peacefully during their fraudulent run. My life is now complete. Don’t Stop Believin’.