Be Good to Yourself

According to the liner notes of Journey's Time3 compilation, with his own domestic situation in disarray and his mother slowly dying, lead singer Steve Perry needed life affirming messages. "That's a Perry-ism," said keyboard player Jonathan Cain, "something he'd always say. I circled it in my notes." But the song didn't come easy. Cain labored over the lyrics for five months. "Steve never had time," Cain said. "He'd just say 'Work on it.'" Finally it came down to the day when the song was to be mixed in New York with engineer Bob Clearmountain. While Cain took a shower, the melody formed in his head. He burst into the studio, his hair still wet, and Perry knocked off the final vocal in less than an hour. Released a month prior to the album as a leadoff single, "Be Good To Yourself," probably sounded more like a traditional Journey song than anything else on the Raised On Radio album.