Journey - Lights - Lyrics Meaning

The song "Lights" by Journey was not originally a hit; however, it gained popularity over the years. The song is thought to be about San Francisco because of the reference to the "City by the Bay." However, the song was actually written originally about Los Angeles. The band is originally from the San Francisco area; however, they relocated to LA later on and wrote the song about this city. The original lyrics to the song were "When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on LA" However, Perry didn't like the way this flowed and later changed the lyrics to "The sun shines on the bay."

Steve Perry states in an interview that the song was brought back to focus when he first joined Journey and they decided that the lyrics "by the bay" were much more suitable since the band originated from the San Francisco area. This was the first song that featured Perry as the lead singer of Journey and references the beauty of the sunset in San Francisco as it reflects off of the bay. This song was featured on the album "Infinity" which was the last album that featured Aynsley Dunbar as the drummer. He was later replaced by Steve Smith because he was "incompatible" with the band.