As expected, Journey has released a brand-new single called “The Way We Used to Be,” along with a companion animated video.

The song is available now as a digital download and via streaming services, and you can check out the video now at the band’s official YouTube channel.

“The Way We Used to Be” is the first new song Journey has released since 2011, and the first made with the band’s recently revamped lineup, which includes new members Narada Michael Walden on drums and Jason Derlatka on keyboards and backing vocals, as well as bassist Randy Jackson, who previously played with the group during the mid-1980s.

Founding guitarist Neal Schon says the idea for the new song began as one of the jams he’d been coming up with and posting online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I laid down the keyboard loop with over-dubbed rhythm and a little blues lead guitar and sent to [longtime Journey keyboardist] Jonathan [Cain],” Schon explains. “He sent it back very shortly after with demo vocals and lyrics and I said to myself with a smile — we’ve still got it!”

Neal adds, “I felt Jonathan nailed the lyrics and melody with haunting chorus ‘got to get back’ — ‘to the way we used to be.’ So this was the complete new beginning chapter for Journey — many more follow the same sequence with all of us collectively writing and working together.”

Schon also reveals that the band’s written “over 26 songs” that they plan to whittle down “to 10 or 12” for a new album they’re recording.

The video for “The Way We Used to Be” follows a young couple who are forced to be apart because of the pandemic, but reunite when the health crisis ends and attend a celebratory Journey stadium concert.

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