"Faith of the Heart" is a song written by

Diane Warren Diane Eve Warren (born September 7, 1956) is an American songwriter. She has received several awards including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three ''Billboard'' Music Awards and an Honorary Academy Award. Wa ...

and performed by

Rod Stewart Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling ...

, for the soundtrack to the 1998 film, ''

Patch Adams Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams (born May 28, 1945) is an American physician, comedian, social activist, clown, and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971. Each year he also organizes volunteers from around the world to travel to var ...

''. Stewart's version charted at number 3 on the US Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and at number 60 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. It was warmly received by critics. The song was later covered in 1999 by Susan Ashton for her album ''Closer'' and released as her first single in the

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

genre. It was also recorded by English

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

Russell Watson Russell Watson is an English tenor who has released singles and albums of both operatic-style and pop songs. He began singing as a child, and became known after performing at a working men's club. He came to attention in 1999 when he sang "God ...

as "Where My Heart Will Take Me" in order to be used as a theme to the 2001 television series ''

Star Trek: Enterprise ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', titled simply ''Enterprise'' for its first two seasons, is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. It originally aired from September 26, 2001, to May 13, 2005 on Uni ...

''. This version of the single was used on four occasions as wake-up calls onboard

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

missions, and performed by Watson at the

2002 Commonwealth Games The 2002 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XVII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Manchester 2002 were held in Manchester, England, from 25 July to 4 August, 2002. The 2002 Games were to be hosted in the United Kingdom to coin ...

. Watson also recorded a special version of the song to be played for the final wake up of the ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...

'' exploration spacecraft on December 6, 2014.

Development and release

"Faith of the Heart" appeared on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

to the 1998 film ''

''. It was released on the

Universal Records Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

label and produced by

Guy Roche Guy Roche is a record producer and songwriter who is best known for the hit singles he has co-written/co-produced for Christina Aguilera, which are " What a Girl Wants", " I Turn to You", and " Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)". He also co-w ...

. The

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

of the release was the main title theme to the film. The song was released less than a month after Stewart's separation from his wife

Rachel Hunter Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand model, actress and the host of Imagination Television's ''Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty''. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including ''Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Rolling Stone'', ' ...

Reception

The song was most successful in the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

within the United States, reaching third place in the chart. The performance of the single placed it in twentieth spot on the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary chart for the year end 1999. William Ruhlmann at the website

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

described "Faith of the Heart" as a

power ballad A sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner.J. M. C ...

which is "a standard effort for its genre". Chuck Taylor, reviewed the song for ''Billboard'' and said that it was one of Stewart's "more enjoyable performances in the last couple of years", and thought that the song could have just as easily been sung by

Celine Dion Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( ; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist, and the best-selling French-language artist of all time. Her ...

LeAnn Rimes Margaret LeAnn Rimes Cibrian (born August 28, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She originally rose to success as a country music artist at age 13 with 1996's "Blue". She has since crossed over into pop, contemporary Chris ...

Susan Ashton cover version

Susan Ashton was previously known for being a singer of

contemporary Christian music Contemporary Christian music, also known as CCM, Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christian faith and s ...

, but decided to move into the

genre after signing a deal with

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. She developed the album ''Closer'', which featured a cover of the Rod Stewart single "Faith of the Heart". It was the first release from the album, but was not as successful as the following single, "

You're Lucky I Love You "You're Lucky I Love You" is a song recorded by American country music artist Susan Ashton. It was released in May 1999 as the second single from the album '' Closer''. The song reached No. 37 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks ch ...

". She considered between 800 and 1000 songs to appear on the album, reducing the number down to ten.

Reception

Tim Anderson, writing in his Country Beat column for ''

Yakima Herald-Republic The ''Yakima Herald-Republic'' is a newspaper published in Yakima, Washington, and distributed throughout Yakima, Kittitas and Klickitat counties as well as northwest Benton County. It is Washington state's seventh-largest daily newspaper. The n ...

'' described Susan Ashton's "Faith of the Heart" as "a definite winner" but that it "did take a couple listens to really hook" him. The release of the single by Ashton was predicted by Brian Mansfield for ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

'' as being the first of a career that would increase sales for the country music genre following Aston's previous success with Christian music.

Russell Watson cover version

"Where My Heart Will Take Me" is a reworked version of "Faith of the Heart" which was performed by English

as the theme song to the 2001 television series ''

''. It was also used on four occasions as wake-up calls on

missions, and was performed by Watson at the opening ceremony of the

. It was poorly received by some Star Trek fans who created petitions and protested against the use of the song as a theme.

Development and release

It was the first time that an actual vocal theme was used in a ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' series. Watson had been approached by the producers of ''Enterprise'' and the song's writer, Diane Warren. As he was a fan of ''Star Trek'' and as Warren had already written a song for his second album, he agreed to the proposal. The song was featured on the soundtrack to ''Enterprise'' and Watson's 2002 album, ''

Encore An encore is an additional performance given by performers after the planned show has ended, usually in response to extended applause from the audience.Lalange Cochrane, in ''Oxford Companion to Music'', Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Pres ...

''. The song was re-recorded for the third and fourth seasons of ''Enterprise''. An instrumental version of the theme was played over the closing credits of the series' first episode, " Broken Bow", but was not used again in the series. One two-part episode from its fourth season, "

In a Mirror, Darkly "In a Mirror, Darkly" is the eighteenth and nineteenth episodes of the Star Trek: Enterprise (season 4), fourth season of the American science fiction television series ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', and originally aired on April 22 and 29 ...

", replaced the theme with a different instrumental composition to reflect that storyline taking place in an alternate universe. As of 2019 it stands as the only ''Star Trek'' theme by a female composer. The song has been used on four occasions as the music selected for wake-up calls on space missions. The first was on 16 June 2002 for the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' during mission

STS-111 STS-111 was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. STS-111 resupplied the station and replaced the Expedition 4 crew with the Expedition 5 crew. It was launched on 5 June 2002, fr ...

to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

. It was again used on 2 August 2005 for mission STS-114, the first mission of the Space Shuttle programme following the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. It was broadcast to the seven crew of the Space Shuttle ''Discovery'', and had been chosen as a surprise for the crew by Deputy Shuttle Programme Manager Wayne Hale.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

Richard Mastracchio Richard Alan "Rick" Mastracchio (born February 11, 1960) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He has flown on three NASA Space Shuttle missions as a mission specialist in addition to serving as a Flight Engineer on the Soyuz TMA-1 ...

selected "Where My Heart Will Take Me" for broadcast on 9 August 2007 onboard ''Endeavour'' for

STS-118 STS-118 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by the orbiter '' Endeavour''. STS-118 lifted off on 8 August 2007 from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida and landed at the Shuttle Landing Fac ...

. The final broadcast on board a Space Shuttle was on May 23, 2009 during

STS-125 STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The launch of ...

, the final Space Shuttle servicing mission to the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

. On this occasion it was broadcast to the crew of the Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. It was the third science fiction themed wake-up call in a row, the previous day having been the Cantina Band composition by

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...

for ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'', and two days prior was Alexander Courage's Theme from ''Star Trek''.

Reception

Singer Russell Watson said that ''Enterprise'' fans would get used to the song being used as a theme to the show. Following the pilot episode of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', " Broken Bow", and the debut of the song as the series' theme tune, the reception among ''Star Trek'' fans was mostly negative. Such was the response, that online petitions were formed and a protest held outside

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

against the use of the song. One petition stated that "We wish to express our unmitigated disgust with the theme song that has been selected for the new 'Enterprise' series, it is not fit to be scraped off the bottom of a

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the original ''Star Trek'' (''TOS'') series, Klingons were swarthy humanoids c ...

's boot." Actor

Simon Pegg Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. H ...

, who played engineer

Montgomery Scott Montgomery "Scotty" Scott is a fictional character in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. First portrayed by James Doohan in the original ''Star Trek'' series, Scotty also appears in the animated ''Star Trek'' series, 10 ''Star Trek ...

in ''

'' and ''

Star Trek Beyond ''Star Trek Beyond'' is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by Justin Lin, written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, and based on the television series ''Star Trek'' created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the 13th film in the ''Star T ...

'' later said that he had never watched ''Enterprise'' due to the song, which he described as "dreadful soft-rock" and "probably the most hideous ''Star Trek'' moment in history". The song was mentioned in the review of the ''Enterprise'' first season

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

set by

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

. It was called "sappy", and the reviewer said that it "never felt appropriate and serves only to undercut the emotional strength of the images on screen". Executive producer of ''Enterprise'',

Rick Berman Richard Keith Berman (born December 25, 1945) is an American television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as the executive producer of several of the '' Star Trek'' television series: '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', ...

, praised the song, saying that it was a song "that's got a lot of hopefulness and uplifting qualities to it. And I like it. I've met a lot of other people who like it, but I've also heard a tremendous amount of banter about people who don't." ''Enterprise'' co-creator

Brannon Braga Brannon Braga (; born August 14, 1965) is an American television producer, director and screenwriter. Best known for his work in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, Braga was a key creative force behind three of the franchise's live action series. He la ...

also defended the song, saying of the protest, "There are some people who love the song and there are people who think it's cheesy. They came with a petition with 1,000 signatures. But plenty of people find the song very uplifting." Watson also said of the response to the song, "Something new happens, and people aren't quite sure of it. But they'll get used to it. By the time they've watched the 20th episode, they'll be thinking, 'Well, it's not that bad after all."

Live performances

Russell Watson performed "Where My Heart Will Take Me" as part of the opening ceremony of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, alongside a choir. The choir subsequently performed the song at a ceremony to mark the retirement of Bishop Christopher Mayfield from his post as

Bishop of Manchester The Bishop of Manchester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Manchester in the Province of York.'' Crockford's Clerical Directory 2008/2009 (100th edition)'', Church House Publishing (). The current bishop is David Walker w ...

Charts

Rod Stewart version

Year-end charts

Susan Ashton version

References

External links

* {{authority control 1999 singles Rod Stewart songs Songs written by Diane Warren Songs written for films Susan Ashton songs Rock ballads 1998 songs Television drama theme songs 1990s ballads Star Trek: Enterprise