So just where is exactly is this “South Detroit” that Journey sings about?
It’s actually called “down river” and is not all that bad. Mostly white working class. East Detroit is where you need to stay out of. I live about 45 miles away in farmland. The guys in the sub have already put together a zombie response team. We’re ready.
Check a map. The kids where I live think it refers to their home town.
Windsor, Ontario, Canada ................................................................................. FRegards
Former Journey frontman Steve Perry pleads poetic license, and ignorance, despite the fact that a quick glance at a map would have alerted him to the issue. "I ran the phonetics of east, west, and north, but nothing sounded as good or emotionally true to me as South Detroit," he says. "The syntax just sounded right. I fell in love with the line. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve learned that there is no South Detroit. But it doesn’t matter."
Somebody asked me that question back in 1981, I think. I had no idea what he was talking about, because there is no South Detroit. I guess Journey needed that one extra syllable.