Retro Video of the Week: "Only The Young" by Journey

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the soundtrack to the movie Vision Quest (the movie itself was released three days later), an underrated '80s movie starring Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino.  Modine plays Louden Swain -- an '80s film high school protagonist name if there ever was one -- a high school wrestler who makes the bold choice to drop two weight classes his senior year, so that he can wrestle an undefeated 3-time state champ who goes to a rival high school.  It was a risky maneuver, and one that his coaches and teammates weren't particularly happy with.  Fiorentino plays Carla, a slightly older transient from New Jersey who rents a room from Louden's dad and has a habit of walking around the house without pants on, much to the delight of Louden's burgeoning hormones.

I won't spoil the end of the movie for you -- that's what the video below is for -- but I will note that it is a pretty solid flick.  I watched it in my sophomore high school health class, presumably because it deals with the dangers of manorexia, as well as how to score an older chick.  The scene that I remember most is when Louden sees a basket of Carla's laundry on top of the washing machine.  A pair of her panties is on top, so he grabs them, holds them up to his face, and does a pretty involved crotch smell.  Just as Carla walks in.

The soundtrack to Vision Quest was pretty damn good too, featuring songs by Dio, Madonna, Foreigner, Sammy Hagar, and Journey, among others.  The Journey song, "Only the Young," was supposed to have been released on their prior album, Frontiers, but was pulled.  Instead, the band put it on this soundtrack and released it as a single, which turned out to be a classic risk-turned-into-reward move, a la Louden Swain himself, since the song peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1985.

The video below isn't an official video (I'm not sure if there was one), but it features scenes from Vision Quest, condensing the plot into about four minutes (and including the pantie smell scene).  In doing my research on the song, I found out about a really touching story related to the song.  The first person other than the band members to hear the song was a 16-year-old boy in the Cleveland area who had cystic fibrosis and was a huge Journey fan.  As part of the Make a Wish Foundation, the band visited him in the hospital, played the song for the boy, and gave him a Walkman with "Only the Young" (along with an autographed Journey platinum record and some other stuff).  The band members apparently broke down into tears after leaving the kid's room.  The next day, he died with the Walkman in his hand.  Enjoy!