In what can reasonably be considered a late Christmas gift to her millions of social media followers, Miley Cyrus has dropped a new video onto her Instagram feed, one that she's also added to her official YouTube channel: a live cover of Journey's "Faithfully."
The performance was recorded at the famed West Hollywood hotel Chateau Marmont, and while the date of the recording is not provided, the combination of Cyrus's attire coupled with the Christmas tree behind her would seem to indicate that the video is from the same show that spawned her previously-shared performances of "Used to Be Young" (released on Dec. 15) and "Jingle Bells" (released on Dec. 18).
The cover art for Journey's original 1983 single release of 'Faithfully'
Throughout her career, Cyrus has maintained a history of performing covers of songs that have influenced her, and it's worth noting that this isn't even the first time she's offered up a cover of "Faithfully." On her 31st birthday (Nov. 23), she took to TikTok and released a live version of the song, but that version - also recorded at the Chateau Marmont - was strictly solo, with her playing piano, whereas the new version provides Cyrus with the opportunity to focus solely on her vocal performance while others provide the instrumentation.
Written by Jonathan Cain, “Faithfully” was originally released on Journey’s eighth studio album, 1983’s Frontiers, and was issued as the second single from the LP.
“God gave me that song,” Cain said in an interview with SongFacts. “I don’t think I’ve ever written a song so quickly. I mean, it was probably half an hour. I started it on the bus heading to Saratoga Springs. I woke up the next day with a napkin on the side of my nightstand and I looked at the lyrics, ‘Highway run into the midnight sun.’ Then I got this supernatural download: This is the rest of the song.
"I wrote the rest of it down, almost frantically. I'd never had a song come to me so quickly that it was anointed, supernatural. Literally, in 30 minutes I had written that song. I had the napkin in my pocket and I put it on the piano. I had a big grand piano there by the orchestra. I played through it and I thought, ‘Man, this is good.’ The Lord gave me permission to finish it. Normally I would go to Steve Perry or somebody and say, ‘Help me finish this song.’ No. God gave me the mind to finish it, and the rest is history.”
