Journey has released “United We Stand,” the latest single from their upcoming album Freedom. You can listen to the song below.
The mid-tempo track is classic Journey, with Neal Schon‘s repeating guitar melody anchoring the song and Arnel Pineda‘s impassioned, soaring vocals bolstered by rich backing harmonies and dramatic horns as he sings, “United we stand / Divided we fall / Just hold on to me, girl / And together we can face it all.”
“United We Stand” is the fifth song released from Freedom, following “Don’t Give Up on Us,” “Let It Rain,” “You Got the Best of Me” and “The Way We Used to Be.” The upcoming LP, which arrives July 8, will mark Journey’s first album in over a decade and the 16th studio album of their illustrious career.
Freedom was almost the title of a different Journey release. During a conversation with UCR, Schon revealed the band’s late manager, Herbie Herbert, had pitched the title for their 1986 album, which was eventually called Raised on Radio. “He wanted to call Raised on Radio, Freedom. Steve Perry did not want that and he fought him profusely,” Schon recalled. “So Steve ended up getting Raised on Radio. Herbie wanted to stay with a one-word title.”
More than 30 years later, Schon and the group revisited the title and realized it had taken on new meaning. “We had just gone through this whole lawsuit with the ex-band members. We went through this whole divorce from old attorneys, old managers, old accountants,” he explained. “It became more evident to me that the word ‘freedom’ meant a lot of different things to me.”
“Not only was it something that Herbie wanted to do a long time ago, but [it represented] everything that we just went through,” the guitarist continued. “I felt like freedom is what I want to know about. That became our new actual LLC as well for our business. We just figured, let’s tie it all in. It all makes sense.”
Coincidentally, the title “United We Stand” has also previously appeared in Journey’s orbit. In 1998, the same year Perry left Journey for the second (and seemingly final) time, the singer released a tune also called “United We Stand” on the soundtrack to the animated film Quest for Camelot.
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Singers may come, and singers most certainly may go, but some great songs remain.