Story | How Steve Perry Wrote “Who’s Crying Now”

Story | How Steve Perry Wrote “Who’s Crying Now” | I Love Classic Rock Videos

Journey live in 1981, Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain - journey / Youtube

From Journey’s seventh album Escape came the smashing hit single, “Who’s Crying Now”. This marked the working relationship and friendship of former frontman Steve Perry and keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who ironically don’t have much left between them except for being former bandmates.

When Gregg Rolie left the band, Cain was hired to take his place, becoming a chief songwriter for the band, along with Perry. “Who’s Crying Now” became one of the first songs they worked on, as Perry shared with Uncle Joe Benson on the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show.

Perry said, “One of the first things we did was a song called ‘Who’s Crying Now’. Driving up from Los Angeles I was in my car, and I always keep a mini-cassette player with me. I heard in my head the chorus – I heard the whole chorus. I don’t know where it came from!”

Perry didn’t waste time and recorded the idea on the cassette and went on to resume his drive to LA, where he decided to drop by at Cain’s first to get his input. “I had all this stuff going on, but I didn’t have all the lyrics finished. The melodies were done and the rhythm was done; I knew what the pocket was. I got up there, met with Jonathan Cain – and boom, he just like zeroed in on it. We had the beginning, we had the middle, he helped do the lyrics with me… it was done!” he said.