Former Journey Singer Steve Perry admits there's no 'South Detroit'

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DETROIT – Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" has been everywhere in recent years -- including on "The Sopranos" finale and on the show "Glee."  But New York Magazine's Vulture column decided to get to the bottom of the glaring mistake.

The lyrics say : "Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit"

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But as Vulture points out, there's no area called "South Detroit."

Vulture points out that the song could refer to the area known as "Downriver," but argue that this area was rural when Journey wrote its song, and thus a "city boy" wasn't going to be raised there.

Vulture called Steve Perry in San Diego to ask him about the geography error.

"I ran the phonetics of east, west, and north, but nothing sounded as good or emotionally true to me as South Detroit," he told the reporter. "It's only been in the last few years that I've learned that there is no South Detroit. But it doesn't matter."

The singer said he was inspired to write the song while he actually was in Detroit on tour, looking out his hotel window.

"All of a sudden I'd see people walking out of the dark, and into the light," Perry told the reporter. "And the term 'streetlight people came to me. So Detroit was very much in my consciousness when we started writing."