July 31, 1981: Journey Release "Escape"

July 31, 1981: The rock band Journey release their album Escape. It turns out to be their biggest hit, with their signature song, "Don't Stop Believin'," and what a 2003 VH1 special called the top "power ballad" of all time, "Open Arms."

The cover lists the title as "E5C4P3," as it it's a personalized license plate, and someone already had the California plate reading "ESCAPE." It's an early example of what the Internet would come to call "Leetspeak."

Left to right: Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory,

Neal Schon, Steve Perry, Steve Smith.

In 1983, Bally Midway released a video game based on the album, with Atari licensed to produce a home version. The premise was that each of the 5 members at the time had to get past various obstacles, in the fashion of games like Breakout, to reach their instruments: Lead singer Steve Perry his microphone, Neal Schon his guitar, Ross Valory his bass guitarist, Jonathan Cain his keyboard, and Steve Smith his drum kit. Once reaching the instrument, the performer would use it as a weapon to blast himself to safety.

If all 5 were successful, the band would reunited for a concert, and the player would then use the joystick to operate a fat security guard, in order to block fans from rushing the stage. Once that failed, the fans would then carry the bandmembers off, and it would start all over again, on a more difficult level.

As of July 31, 2022, all 5 members are still alive. Cain is married to sketchy "prosperity gospel" televangelist Paula White. He and Schon were also in Bad English with John Waite. Valory had been in The Steve Miller Band before it got big, and has begun recording with Neal's son, Miles Schon, playing guitar.

For years, on "Don't Stop Believin'," I thought Perry was singing "Streetlife people, living with profound emotion." Was I ever disappointed when I found out it was "living just to find emotion." Far be it from me to tell him how to write songs, but I still like my version better. Finding emotion is easy. "Profound Emotion" sounds like the title of an epic album.

Of course, there is no "South Detroit." That would be Windsor, Ontario, Canada. But Perry, a native of central California's San Joaquin Valley, just liked the sound of it.

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July 31, 1981 was a Thursday. English soccer player Titus Bramble was born.

The only major league sport in season at the time was baseball, and the Strike of '81 was on. So there were no scores on this historic day.