Random Thoughts – Randocity!

Every once in a while, I come across a song that I decide to listen to the lyrics a bit more closely to deduce what’s going on. Journey was also one of my all-time favorite bands during the 80s. Let’s explore.

[Updated for 2023]

I’ve recently come to find that the version of Only Solutions on the 2006 reissue of Frontiers Deluxe Edition has a completely different mix. I can’t exactly tell if this song’s backing track is fully re-recorded or simply remixed from the original masters or a combination of re-recording and remixing. It sounds more like a re-recording by Neal and co layering Steve’s original vocals over this mix. Regardless, Steve Perry’s vocal stems from the original 1982 recording are all there. In fact, because of this re-recording, Steve’s vocals are quite a bit more clear in this newer mix. Let’s have a listen…

In fact, because of the above new mix, I’m hearing a lyric change. I was originally thinking Steve was saying, “Find the beast to logical life”. In fact, in the above mix, I can distinctly hear Steve pronounce the last word as light (with a hard T sound) in the second half of the song. I couldn’t hear this in the 1982 mix.

As a result of this clearer mix, I’ve changed the lyrics below to “Find the beast to logical light“. The word “Light” also makes more rhyming sense to the line just before “In the jungle, I run tonight” and the line just after “No confusion, just run right, oh yeah”… making the three lines end with tonight, light and right. Perfect.

I’ve also updated “Magic leaves you without any clues” to “Logic leaves you without any clues”, the word ‘magic’ actually makes more sense because magic doesn’t leave clues. Since this song is about Logic and not Magic, the word Logic makes more (ahem) logical sense in this song. If you listen to Steve, his pronunciation sounds more like he’s singing ‘Logic’, not ‘Magic’.

Lyric Analysis

Diving into the lyrical end, some bands occasionally release a song with odd lyrics and odd phrasing by the singer. As an example, Only Solutions specifically comes to mind. Within this song’s primary verse + chorus, many believe this section of lyrics to be, ‘Don’t pull me down, I just want to hear’. Steve clearly pronounces a ‘j’ sound at the beginning of this specific verse every time. I believe he’s attempting to contract the words Just and Don’t together and then attempts to shorten the whole thing into a single word which comes out as ‘Jo’, short for just don’t or j’ont (as the contraction). He clearly is not singing Don’t. For confirmation of this, listen to how Steve pronounces the word Don’t in the line ‘You don’t fool me with cynical lies’. That Don’t is completely different from the ‘Jo pull me down, I just want to hear’ line. With that said, let’s dive right into the rest of the lyrical oddities in this song.

The lyrics are just below and this article describes why I believe they are accurate to this song. This song is one of only but a few songs written by Journey for films. This one is called Only Solutions. This song was written for the 1982 Disney movie Tron, a computer animated and live action film about a computer simulation. Clearly, Journey was given this plot information when they were asked to pen this song.

The lines I transcribe in the below lyrics make much more logical sense with the lines that have come before. Let’s start with the first verse (which is already somewhat confusing), the first verse opens with ‘In the Jungle, I run tonight’. It opens stating someone running through a jungle of sorts. The second line is stated to be (on other lyric sites) ‘Find the peace to logical life’. I believe Steve is actually singing ‘Find the beast to logical life’ (See the above update as I’ve changed it to “light“). A ‘beast’ makes more sense in a jungle context and in which a runner might encounter said beast in that jungle. In fact, ‘Find the beast to logical life’ actually seems to be a statement of fact. While running in the jungle, the runner has just now encountered this ‘beast of logical life’ immediately to his left to which he then ‘runs right’. Of course, the beast to logical life in Tron refers to either the MCP or Sark (the MCP’s right hand).

Let’s try to understand the ‘peace’ idea. Why would someone find peace in a jungle? They wouldn’t. In a jungle you would find beasts, not peace.

The third line of this first verse further describes his jungle running escapade and is sometimes written as “No confusion, just wrong or right”. That doesn’t make any sense either. He’s in a jungle running, what does ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ have to do with jungle running and confusion? It doesn’t. However, by running TO the right, if a beast is on your left, this runner can, through no confusion, avoid the aforementioned ‘beast to logical life’. This line also confirms that the second line is a statement of fact at encountering a “beast”. Alternatively, the “just run right” could be a kind of question, like “just run, right?” to which he answers, “Oh yeah”. It’s like he’s saying to himself, “I’ve run into a beast. I should run, right?” (right meaning correct). Instead of running to his right, he’s telling himself to run away. Either meaning works for this line.

This is just the first verse in this song and we’re already confused by the lyrics and, more specifically, Steve’s pronunciation. However, we should no longer be confused about this first verse and we can move on with the rest of the song.

Now we stumble into the second verse which also has more confusion. Some lyric sites believe the lyric of the second line of the second verse to be ‘You don’t fool me with cynical lies’. There’s no other lyrics that discuss having conversations with anyone. However, the line immediately before it states ‘Faces, numbers I recognize’. Since he’s talking about faces, he would then be looking into the face (and the eyes) of that person. Seeing their eyes, he might be able to deduce cynicism. Thus, ‘You don’t fool me with cynical eyes’ seems more appropriate and logical to the line just before. However, with the new clearer and remastered version of Steve’s vocals on a new backing track, I can actually hear the distinction between ‘cynical’ and ‘lies’, so I’ve updated the lyrics to be ‘lies’.

The next pronunciation problem in this song is a little past halfway through in verse seven. There’s a line that many lyric sites claim to be ‘Now that the sun is shining’. Steve sings no phrase even similar to that. If you listen closely to what Steve is singing, the lyric sounds much more like ‘Now that the sun that shines’. But, that line doesn’t make any sense either. There’s nothing before or after talking about light or sunshine or anything similar. In fact, the line which Steve sings is actually ‘Logical Solutions’ or more specifically, he pronounces it ‘Logical Sol-U-Tions’ with small pauses where the dashes are. It’s odd phrasing and inflection at best. It’s the ‘tions’ portion that sounds like ‘shines’. It’s just that Steve so oddly pronounces the word Solutions, it’s easily misheard as something other than Solutions. Anything with the word ‘shines’ makes no sense, but ‘Logical Solutions’ makes perfect sense in the context of a song about solutions, since we’re also talking about logical life, mysteries and considering the song is titled Only Solutions, containing the word ‘Solutions’ in its title.

The final biggest pronunciation problem is in the final verse. Many lyric sites believe the first two phrases to be ‘People Reason’. I’ve even seen other people interpret it as ‘We fall even’. It’s neither of these two. Those two don’t even make sense in context of the song. The words he sings is ‘Need for reason’. When trying to create an ‘Only Solution’ with ‘Clear Visions’, you would have ‘Need for reason’. Reason and logic go hand in hand and makes much more sense in the context of the lyrics of this song.

Japanese Insert from the 1982 release of the Tron Soundtrack on vinyl

After digging around looking for a vinyl release with lyrics due to a comment, I have found some printed lyrics for this song which were included with the Japanese release of this album in 1982 (Catalog: 25AP 2384). The insert is black and white and bi-fold. It contains a large amount of Japanese writing describing the album and the Tron project. It also contains English lyrics for Only Solutions. This is the only album release I have found by Sony / Columbia to have included any lyrics for this song.

Here is the Japanese vinyl black and white bi-fold insert containing lyrics to Only Solutions:

Unfortunately, it appears that whomever wrote these printed lyrics apparently didn’t get the lyrics directly from the band and/or there’s another explanation (keep reading). Instead, it seems someone at Columbia may have listened to the song and penned what they thought they heard. There are extra words in these lyrics that Steve Perry doesn’t sing. However, it’s also possible that these are the raw penned lyrics that Steve Perry may have used as reference to sing the song and he changed the words as he sang them in the studio.

I always prefer printed lyrics to be accurate to what the singer is singing, not what was originally penned by the band and not used in the song. If you’re really interested in reading these specific lyrics better, I have typed them into one of my comments below. Know that they don’t 100% match what Steve is actually singing. Note also that the ‘?’ in one of the words is because the word is mostly unintelligible in the photographs of this insert.

Corrected Lyrics

With that said, below are the corrected lyrics for Journey’s Only Solutions. If I could get in touch with Steve Perry, I’d love to discuss the idea behind the lyrics of this song with him and determine if these lyrical deductions are actually correct. Only Steve can truly give us the actual lyrics to this song.

Here’s the original 1982 version.

Enjoy!

I have created a remix of the 1982 backing track combined with Steve’s new vocal stem found in the updated version of Only Solutions (at the top of this article). Because Steve’s vocal in this newer track is more crystal clear than the original release, I thought it might help to hear the vocals better. I have also isolated Steve’s vocal from this, which Steve’s isolated vocal is just below this one.

Full Track — Only Solutions (Remix / Remastered Vocals 2023)

Steve’s Isolated Vocal

Only Solutions [last updated 7/25/2023]
by Journey

In the jungle, I run tonight
Find the beast to logical light
No confusion, just run right, oh yeah

Faces, numbers I recognize
You don’t fool me with cynical lies
No problems, no compromise, oh yeah

(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear
(Only Solutions) Oh, it won’t be long, it won’t take too long

Modern times drivin’ me insane
Explanations I can’t explain
Leave me standin’ in the rain, oh yeah

Solvin’ mysteries with nothin’ to lose
Logic leaves you without any clues
There’s only so much one man can do, oh yeah

(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear
(Only Solutions) Oh, it won’t be long, it won’t take too long
(Only Solutions) Jo pull me down, I just want to hear

Logical Solutions
Clear Visions
Clear Visions

In the jungle, I run tonight
Find the beast to logical light
No confusion, just run right, oh yeah

Faces, numbers I recognize
You don’t fool me with cynical lies
No problems, no compromise, oh yeah

(Only Solutions) It’s my point of view
(Only Solutions) Oh, clear visions
(Only Solutions) No second thoughts
(Only Solutions) Now, now no contradictions

Need for reason
Need for reason
No escape

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