Going Where My Heart Will Take Me

Faith of the Heart -- Star Trek Enterprise Titles Song

Lyrics by Diane Warren

Sung by Russel Watson

Originally recorded by Rod Stewart

It's been a long road

Getting from there to here

It's been a long time

But my time is finally near

And I can feel the change in the wind right now

Nothing's in my way

And they're not gonna hold me down no more

No there not gonna hold me down

Cause I've got faith of the heart

I'm going where my heart will take me

I've got faith to believe

I can do anything

I've got strength of the soul

And no one's gonna bend or break me

I can reach any star

I've got faith

I've got faith

Faith of the heart

There are five more verses: Russell Watson - Faith Of The Heart Lyrics | MetroLyrics

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I started watching reruns of Star Trek Enterprise on Netflix last week and by the time I heard the titles song the third time I was beginning to own it--the sentiment of it.

Since then I've seldom let the show continue without playing the titles a second time and often three or four times. Now the song plays itself in my head all day and I'm starting to feel it viscerally.

I've come to identify with it to such a degree I've taken it on as my personal anthem.

Since I've found several YouTube versions I probably won't feel the need to replay them at the beginning of every episode.

Star Trek Enterprise was the only Star Trek series I never got to see all the episodes.  In fact I have seen less than half of them.  They were always changing up the schedule without warning--switching from Saturday night to Friday night, switching from the 7pm slot to 4, 6, 8, or 9pm or even 1am--usually to accommodate a sport show.

Star Trek began weaving itself into my psyche at age 9 becoming second only to the Bible and tied with Shakespeare in impact to my sense of story.  From age 11 through my late teens I was a rabid fan of the Classic Star Trek--Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scottie, Sulu, Uhara, Checkov--and recognized even before age 13 that a great many of the episodes were parables.

I realized recently that it had been years since I'd seen classic Star Trek episodes and began to long for them and thought it was about time I take advantage of their availability on Netflix but once I signed in and saw Enterprise and remembered I'd missed so many episodes when they aired, I decided that it was fitting to watch the prequel to the classic Star Trek first.

Watching Star Trek now is an exercise in tracing my relationship to story back to its roots.  I wish to re-encounter as an adult and as a writer all the stories that enthralled me as a youth.

It's also homage to the first stories I wrote that weren't children's picture books or chapter books--Star Trek fan fic.  Though I didn't know that's what it was called and it was long before the Internet so I didn't know anyone else did it and only a handful of my sixth grade classmates ever saw any of the pages.