They better play don’t stop believin’!
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South Detroit is Windsor!
As a Windsor native living abroad, I always feel homesick when they show the river and mention my hometown on national TV.
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They could make it fair and play that song and Lights, which mentions SF.
Bet that’s what they do. They want to sell records and Detroit is hot.
That line has always driven me nuts.
How do you tell me you’ve never gotten off the tour bus in Detroit, with out telling me you’ve never gotten off the bus in Detroit?
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Yeah and for the big acts it was the Joe and Cobo, literally right across the river. I do know many rock stars are not idiots and knew that was Windsor, Canada across the way.
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Journey’s then-lead singer Steve Perry recently revealed the origin of the fictitious Michigan reference in Journey’s 1981 hit “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Perry told “New York Magazine” that the lyrics came to him while staying in a Detroit-area hotel in 1980, when the band was on tour. ‘South Detroit’ was simply poetic license:
“I was digging the idea of how the lights were facing down so that you couldn’t see anything,” he said as he recalled looking out a hotel room window at 2 a.m. “All of a sudden I’d see people walking out of the dark, and into the light. And the term ‘streetlight people’ came to me. So Detroit was very much in my consciousness when we started writing.” (The song includes the line: “Streetlight people/ Living just to find emotion/ Hiding somewhere in the night.”
“I ran the phonetics of east, west, and north, but nothing sounded as good or emotionally true to me as South Detroit,” Perry said. “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.”
Read More: Steve Perry Reveals Origin of ‘South Detroit’ in ‘Don’t Stop Believin” [AUDIO] | Steve Perry Reveals Origin of ‘South Detroit’ in ‘Don’t Stop Believin” [AUDIO]
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I, along with many if not most Windsorites, identify with Detroit rather than Toronto as the big city they love.
What always drove me nuts was when someone would give me flack about it, like when travelling when I’d talk about Detroit and they’d say aw, isn’t that cute. Windsor is less than a mile away from downtown Detroit, and the suburbs, well they start around eight. And Windsor is similarly auto-centric and went through all of the ups and downs that go along with that.
I spent a fair bit of time drinking and watching bands in the Cass Corridor during university. The Old Miami and Alvins were always fun. Party central for bands was always St. Andrews, though.
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Might be one of the few times I watch halftime. I always really enjoyed Journey.
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Now you’re talking dirty. I will admit liking them on the radio in grade school. Okay, so they were tolerable in high school because the girls liked them so much. 
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I’m not without pity, even if 49ers fans are complete tools. So I hope the band can stick around and play one for their fans…as they’re exiting the stadium…after the Lions hand them their lunch…
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Spent many nights playing shows and hanging at The Old Miami, Corktown Tavern, The Shelter, St. Andrews. Lot of good times growing up love the city
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The Old Miami was quite the joint. When I asked the proprietor if he ever felt unsafe in that hood, he literally pulled out a sawed-off shotgun from under the bar. And then told me half the regulars were Vietnam vets, so. And I looked around and thought, yeah, it all makes sense now. I’m in the safest bar in the Cass Corridor.
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What was the name of your band?
They better not. Anyone who knows anything about Detroit knows there is no such thing as “South Detroit.” It’s a total bolo, from a song writer who wanted to portray a character who was “tough” but knew zip about the city. Stick with Wheel in the Sky. Or just say Downriver…
Oh South Detroit is real, amigo. It was actually proposed as the name for the city that became Windsor. I hate that it didn’t win over the British royal bit. If the French had held onto Detroit, I imagine Windsor might have been named Detroit Sud.
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The reference is not what anyone in or around the city actually says. That was my point. You are either an East sider or West sider. You may live North of the city or Down River, but no one there says they live in quote South Detroit. The rest is the Mile Roads and the North South Roads. EG: I lived at 12 and Van Dyke in Warren.
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Your point is valid. Nobody who lives in the metro area talks about South Detroit.
However, that doesn’t mean it there isn’t a south Detroit.
There is a city very similar to DET that is due south of the city. And it was once almost named South Detroit.
And Windsor is less than one mile from Detroit. Nobody bring any X mile shit in heya. You folks are tourists in DET. Fo real. We on the Windsor side are the homies. I keed, no offense.
Proper.
After high school I spent a summer working in a muthfuckin filthy Ford foundry built in the 1930s. We ain’t new heya.
All the Big Three built factories in Windsor. It was little Detroit, and south of Detroit.
**To be read in a Steven A. Smith voice
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Production:
- 91,000 tonnes of molten metal poured per year
- about 500,000 engine blocks per year
- two million crankshafts produced each year for seven models, ranging from 22-pound to 38-pound crankshafts for everything from small inline four-cylinder engines to V-8s
Just having fun… but really. Ford has roots in Windsor going back to 1904 to a wagon company. Chrysler began operations in Windsor in 1925. All of the Big Three had significant operations in the city.
And here you will see Detroit’s first NHL team playing in their home arena in Windsor in 1926. That’s right the precursor to the Wings played their first year home games in Windsor. I played B level hockey in the same arena in the 1980s!
My closing argument:
I know many Metro Detroiters think of Windsor as a small town across the river known best for gambling and strip joints.
But the truth is Windsor is Detroit’s closest sibling, your twin city. Just located in another freaking country. Due south.
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Well played.
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