Song For JOURNEY!

Lovelies,

This little secret has been burning a hole in my pocket for over a year now. 

I'm so excited I finally get to tell you!

I did indeed write a song for JOURNEY! Not only that, it is the FIRST SONG on their highly anticipated new double album!

I am so grateful to my co-writer, genius and madman Narada Michael Walden, for bringing me onto this project. Narada is best known for his work with Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Beck, Stevie Wonder, and many of your other favorite artists of all time. I've only just alluded to my work with him in these newsletters, but it's been a defining aspect of my last couple years. Since meeting, two weeks before the start of the pandemic, we've written together, no exaggeration, over a hundred songs. Perhaps another hundred partial songs. Each one has expanded my lyrical and melodic capacities. What's more, I've had the opportunity to find my voice in every genre you could imagine... Pop, Latin, R & B, Electronica, Trance, Gospel, and of course... Stadium Rock!

The Journey song is called Together We Run. It started as a voice note to myself in the first weeks of lockdown, when the idea of taking someone's hand, let alone taking off for the city, was all of a sudden the stuff of fantasy. Narada and I bounced ideas back and forth until we'd honed it. Then in the later stages Randy, Jonathan, and Neal all added some of their special Journey sauce. Suffice it to say I did a whole lotta crying as I worked through my self-doubt of whether I'm meant to contribute at this level. Thank goodness my reference track was Don't Stop Believin' cause it was a message I dearly needed to hear.

This is a new look for me to say the least, but I think if you squint you'll recognize some solid Rachel Efron themes. Safety and the lack thereof. Belonging and the lack thereof. My perpetual conviction that sometimes, when everyone around you is telling you you're wrong, it only means it's time to pack 3 shirts and get yourself someplace else.

Together we run!

Finally, please know, despite this foray into Stadium Rock, I remain truly and forever Your Lady of Moody Tone Poems.

Rachel