Steve Perry – Oh Sherrie

She Was Sleeping When He Wrote It At Midnight

Released in April 1984 as the debut single from Street Talk, “Oh Sherrie” became Steve Perry’s biggest solo hit, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Mainstream Rock chart. The song entered the charts on April 7 and spent months climbing while MTV kept the video in heavy rotation. Perry wrote it for his girlfriend Sherrie Swafford, who actually appears in the video looking absolutely stunning while Perry serenades her in a stairwell. But here’s the detail that makes you feel for poor Sherrie: when Perry, Randy Goodrum, Craig Krampf, and Bill Cuomo started composing around midnight with little more than the simple chorus, Swafford had been in the room with them initially but went to sleep because of the late hour. She woke up to discover her boyfriend had written her a love song that would eventually make her famous to millions of Journey fans who couldn’t tell the difference between Perry’s solo work and the band.

The chart performance proved that Journey fans didn’t care whether Perry had the rest of the band behind him. “Oh Sherrie” hit number three on June 16, 1984, just behind Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”. The Street Talk album itself reached number 12 on the Billboard 200 and was certified double platinum. Three more singles followed with “Foolish Heart” hitting number 18, “She’s Mine” reaching number 21, and “Strung Out” peaking at number 40. In the UK, the song barely registered at number 89, spending just one week on the charts. This was 1984, the year lead singers of popular bands released solo albums almost as a rite of passage, with Tommy Shaw of Styx and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac also testing the solo waters. Perry’s was the most commercially successful of the bunch, proving his voice alone was enough to sell records even without Neil Schon’s guitar heroics.

Randy Goodrum told the story of how he wrote the lyrics by focusing on the drama he sensed in Perry and Swafford’s relationship. Goodrum said he liked to find a premise rather than just a hook, so he fashioned the lyrics around two people in a complicated romance. Perry was in the midst of a rough patch with Swafford, struggling to convey turbulent feelings while Journey was peaking commercially. They remained crazy in love, as Perry later described it, but dating a rock star proved no easy task for Swafford. The song captured the complexity of loving someone while living on the road, the promises to hold on, the reassurances that despite everything you should be happy. Bill Cuomo created that striking intro where after a short instrumental passage, Perry exclaims his opening line with no accompaniment, a moment Cuomo sequenced on a multi-tumbrel sequencer and plugged directly into the console.

Recording took place at Record One Studios in Los Angeles over three weeks in late 1983 and early 1984, with Perry serving as producer alongside executive producer Bruce Botnick and engineer Niko Bolas handling both recording and mixing. Perry surrounded himself with elite session players rather than using Journey members. Larrie Londin played drums on the track with his powerful, precise style. Bob Glaub laid down the bass line. Michael Landau and Waddy Wachtel both contributed guitar, though it was Wachtel who ended up playing the song’s guitar solo after an important creative intervention. When Wachtel noticed an open spot in the recording and asked engineer Niko Bolas what Perry planned to put there, he learned Perry intended a saxophone solo. Wachtel immediately protested, insisting it was a rock song that required a guitar solo, and tore through the riff that appears on the finished release. The album was mastered by Mike Reese at The Mastering Lab.

The Street Talk album represented Perry’s first step away from Journey, though he was still officially a member of the band. The album title itself honored his pre-Journey band Alien Project, which was originally going to be called Street Talk. In the liner notes, Perry dedicated the album to Richard Michaels, the bassist for Alien Project. Drummer Craig Krampf, one of “Oh Sherrie”‘s co-writers, had also been a member of Alien Project in the late 70s. The album’s cover photo by John Scarpati, shot during recording sessions at a studio in Sherman Oaks, launched Scarpati’s career as a major music photographer. Critics gave the album mixed reviews, praising Perry’s vocal prowess while questioning the production’s glossy sheen and lack of originality compared to Journey’s harder-edged material. But fans didn’t care about critical reception. They bought two million copies.

The song’s legacy includes Journey performing it on their 1986 Raised on Radio Tour, which proved to be Perry’s live swansong with the band. The relationship tension that inspired the song eventually contributed to Perry leaving Journey after that tour ended in 1987, along with the death of his mother. “Oh Sherrie” is often regarded as an honorary Journey song, credited to the band on several hit compilation albums largely due to its resemblance to their trademark sound. The Molly Ringwalds recorded a cover version, as did The Hindley Street Country Club. Various tribute artists and instrumental versions have kept the song alive across decades. The track even got sampled and parodied, appearing in the 1998 film BASEketball as one of the movie’s psyche outs. More than anything, the song proved memorable for capturing what songwriter Randy Goodrum called a perfect combination of all moving parts working as they should.

Four decades later, “Oh Sherrie” remains the definitive Steve Perry solo moment, the song that proved Journey’s golden voice could carry a hit entirely on its own power. Sherrie Swafford eventually exited from Perry’s life and from public view, later describing herself as an animal lover and yoga instructor who never married or had children. Reporters kept trying to contact her for years after she and Perry split, but she maintained her privacy with remarkable determination. Perry himself didn’t release another solo album until 1994’s For the Love of Strange Medicine, then went silent for 24 years before returning with Traces in 2018. But “Oh Sherrie” never went away. It’s the song Journey fans request at shows even though it was never really a Journey song. It’s the track that radio stations play when they want Steve Perry without the full band dynamic. And it remains the ultimate testament to what happens when you stay up past midnight working on a love song while your girlfriend sleeps in the next room, unaware she’s about to become part of rock history.