Comments: 5

• Tami from Tulare CaI'm from Tulare which is a town over from Hanford, Steve's hometown. Back in the 70's and 80's there wasn't much to do here but cruise on Friday & Saturday nights. We'd all jump from town to town. Tulare, Hanford, Visalia. Meeting people and getting word of a keg party in someone's barn or at the air strip. It was a simpler time. No internet or cell phones. We could cruise all night on $5 worth of gas. Those were some of the best times ever! Now, cruising is prohibited.
• Sheila Mayes from CaliforniaThis song reminds me of my son who was murdered. Riding thru the streets at night on wheels of fire. Him being sad that the streets he knew are not the same. And, that it has been so long since he left us, that no one here remembers him at all.
• Marty Guidry from Live Oak FlSome songs never die they continue to ride thru the city lights this one set in stone for sure!
• Ricky W from Aluquerque New MexicoWhen this song came out in the 80s, this was my running song. I had my Sony Walkmans on, and this song would play. I always ran at night, when I got off work. I used to love running to this song at night. The song always reminded me of an old biker named Jessie, cruising the streets of San Francisco at night time. All his other biker friends had either died, or moved on. Now he was the only one left to ride those San Francisco streets all alone. It was the only life Jessie knew, and so he would ride. They would ride, into the night. Even though this saga is quite different from the true Steve Perry story. This is how I envisioned the song, as I ran my miles at night.
• Josie from B-town, CoSteve Perry also said in Open Arms: The Steve Perry Anthology quote " 'Still They Ride is one of my favorite car songs. When I grew up in central San Joaqquin Valley, there was a thickness in the summer night after a certain time of evening, when most of the people were gone and there were only a few still crusing Main Street. The twon was so quiet that this thickness in the night had its own reality. That's where this song came from. The youth who still cruise at night still rule the night. There is something forever about it, and I love it for that. Jesse is a metaphor for a guy who won't give up the fantasy. It's probably a metaphor for me, but I love the name Jesse. 'Jesse rides through the night under the main street light, riding slow. This old town ain't the same; now nobody knows his name. Times have changed; still he rides. Traffic lights keeping time...' When cruising down Main Street at night, if you caught the right timing, you could watch the traffic lights go green and then the next block, green, and then the next block, green in some kind of delayed rhythm. If you were caught in the right place in the wave of green, you could cruise soulfully all the way through. 'Traffic lights keeping time, leading the wild and restless through the night.'"

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