Way Back Wednesday: The Top Music of June 24th, 1983

This Week In 1983: The Top Music of June 24th, 1983

Irene Cara still sits atop the chart in the #1 position. The biggest jump of the week belongs to The Police and the song that will eventually unseat her, “Every Breath You Take”, which jumps ten spots to #10. Lionel Richie and Men at Work both drop over a dozen spots on their way down the chart while two songs making their debut in the Top 40 are “White Wedding” by Billy Idol and “Cuts Like a Knife” by Bryan Adams. Peaking at #12 this week is our featured song of the week “Faithfully”.

Song Story: “Faithfully” by Journey

This is Journey’s second single from their Frontiers album. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain wrote the song after the melody came to him in a dream. Classic Rock magazine critic, Paul Elliot, named “Faithfully” as the greatest power ballad of all time. Journey hated the idea of making videos, but they couldn’t ignore the growing influence and impact of MTV. At the time, finding a director for a music video wasn’t easy so the band’s manager hired the guys from NFL Films to shoot footage of the band on the road and onstage. It’s one of the first – if not the first – video to use the “on the road” video concept that would later be used by bands like Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Genesis and others. Speaking of tour, Bryan Adams was the opening act for the band while on tour supporting the Frontiers album. He wrote his eventual #1 song “Heaven” during this time and admits that it was heavily influenced by “Faithfully”. After recording the song “Purple Rain”, Prince contacted Cain asked him to listen to it, worried that it sounded to similar to “Faithfully”. Cain reassured him that the only similarity was the use of the same four chords.