Songfacts®:

• The esteemed songwriter Diane Warren wrote "The Journey" for the 2024 Netflix movie The Six Triple Eight, which tells the story of a United States Army unit made up entirely of Black women who were given the seemingly impossible task of sorting the backlog of mail that accumulated in Europe during World War II. The song reflects the long and arduous journey these women faced, and also the journeys of the packages and letters they were able to deliver.
• The song has a meaning beyond the movie, according to its writer, Diane Warren. "As I was writing the song, I thought, This goes beyond the movie," she said. "This is about life and about all our journeys. The song is a reminder that you can go through hell, but still you're going to make it through."
• The Six Triple Eight didn't hit Netflix until December 20, 2024, but the song was released on May 18, 2023. It got a boost from a video that was released in November 2024 incorporating footage the film, and it surged in streams after the Oscars ceremony.
• If it's a pensive, empowering song that was nominated for an Oscar, there's a good chance it was written by Diane Warren, who earned her first Best Original Song nomination in 1987 with "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," recorded by Starship for the movie Mannequin. "The Journey" was her 16th (!) nomination in that category, and eighth consecutive. By this time it was almost a ritual for one of her songs to show up in the list but not win - somehow none of those 16 songs got the award. Her seven songs leading up to "The Journey" were:
  
  2017: "Stand Up For Something" by Andra Day from Marshall
  2018: "I'll Fight" by Jennifer Hudson from RBG
  2019: "I'm Standing with You" by Chrissy Metz from Breakthrough
  2020: "Io sì (Seen)" by Laura Pausini from The Life Ahead
  2021: "Somehow You Do" by Reba McEntire from Four Good Days
  2022: "Applause" by Sofia Carson from Tell It Like A Woman
  2023: "The Fire Inside" by Becky G from Flamin' Hot
  
  Unlike Diane Warren, H.E.R. does have an Oscar. She won Best Original Song of 2020 for "Fight For You" from the movie Judas And The Black Messiah.
• H.E.R. and Diane Warren worked on a song together about 10 years earlier, but it was never released. They stayed in touch, and H.E.R. was thrilled to get the chance to work with her again on "The Journey." Warren was pleased with the results. "I can't think of anybody that could have done the song like H.E.R.," she said. "It was so meant to be."
• In concert, H.E.R. often lets loose in a way that doesn't come off on her recordings, which are more polished, but "The Journey" is closer to her live sound. "There was a big note at the end of the song," she told Rolling Stone. "It was one take, which is pretty crazy. This is a song where people really get to hear my vocals. They've never heard me sing like this on a record. So I'm really, really excited for people to hear it and to experience what they would hear live from me, on record."