Lights

i always associated it with Green BAY, seeing as how it says city by the BAY duhh -Kevin

Journey's best.

go ahead. argue.

and, yes, it is about San Fran, but I'd like to think it's about my home town, sea-town.

and computwiz - Journey is not a singer. journey is a band. Steve Perry is a singer. for a band. called journey. shoots

I used to listen to this song every mourning on the ride to my daycare. And to me it's about Seattle. Thats my city, but now it had a greater meaning when I was all the way out in butt fucking Iraq fight a war. I come back in August 2003. Hey friends does that give a good enough instight for a great song.

This is a great song...one of my favorites. Joyrney is a good band. And with regards to that Los Angeles comment...I, too, must laugh. Everybody knows that San Francisco is the city by the bay.

actually, compuwiz is kinda right...Steve Perry originally wrote this song about LA, then had to change it when he joined Journey to make it about San Fran cuz that's where the rest of Journey was from...i got your back compuwiz!!

hell yeah CT man. I have great memories of hearing this song on the radio while driving up I-91 throught hartford. Not a city by the bay in any means, but its still a good feeling.

YES THIS SONG IS ABOUT SAN FRANSICO, NOT LOS ANGELES! A really great memory I have of this song is when I was a kid me and my family flew to San Fransico. It was at like 2:00 in the morning when the plane was about the hit the runway, and they played this song during the landing process. Since the airport is right in the bay, MAN the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge lit up with this song playing was so beatuiful, and at the same time so emontional. Passengers were crying, it definatley is something I will remember for ever. This song always cheers me up because it makes me think of that time. Steve Perry has a powerful, and heart touching voice.

The fact that one single radio standard Journey song could incite such heated debate is a major source of entertainment for me at this moment.

Sure, I am easily amused. Just as Compuwiz19 is positively weird. Whats next? The assertion by FaRvELvR1992 that its about green bay? Oh, wait. wouldnt want to give anyone any ideas...

Probably my favorite Journey song (just an inch above Separate Ways).

I always love thinking about how with a few judicious changes to the lyrics, it could really be a song about wanting to go home to any city. Yeah, I know it's about San Francisco, but it's nice to imagine it could be about Tampa, New York City, or even Hell, Michigan if one felt like it. That's how universal the sensibility it invokes is.

Even though this is about San Francisco, it was written in Los Angeles, where the band had relocated. Steve Perry explained in an interview with Joe Benson of Arrow 93.1 FM: "I had the song written in Los Angeles almost completely except for the bridge and it was written about Los Angeles. It was 'when the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on LA.' I didn't like the way it sounded at the time. And so I just had it sitting back in the corner. Then life changed my plans once again, and I was now facing joining Journey. I love San Francisco, the bay and the whole thing. 'The bay' fit so nice, 'When the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay.' It was one of those early morning going across the bridge things when the sun was coming up and the lights were going down. It was perfect."

'City by the Bay' IS synonymous with San Francisco(Bay Area) and that's where Steve is from but this song can be interpreted as anyone's 'city by the bay'.