As you seemed to enjoy last week’s set of dream songs, and as I still have so many more that I could play, I’m going with it again for this week. So here are five more songs with dream in their title, either singular or plural. All were already on my list, though a couple of these were mentioned in comments on the previous set. I’m guessing that three will be well known, one less so, and one very probably not!

This was one of those that were mentioned, and it feels as good a place as any to start:

Running Down A Dream was a track on what was officially Tom Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever, which was released in April 1989. The members of The Heartbreakers played on the album, though, as did Jeff Lynne, George Harrison and Roy Orbison from The Traveling Wilburys. The album reached #3 in the US and #8 in the UK, and has sold more than 6m copies. This song was released in July 1989 as the second single from the album, peaking at #23 in the US and #55 in the UK. It’s a great album, and it includes the song I Won’t Back Down, which has become an iconic signature tune for the Florida Gators college handegg (sorry, football) team since Tom’s passing. Highly recommended, as befits a song which I think I’m playing for at least a third time!

This next tune is the one which I think will be the least well known of today’s set:

She Comes To Me In Dreams was a track on Lost Channels, the fourth album by Great Lake Swimmers, which was released in March 2009. As far as I can tell – Wikipedia is a little short on info – the album didn’t chart anywhere, and this one wasn’t released as a single. The band, as their name might suggest, are from Canada, and as I have said when playing them previously they have a special place in my heart, as they were the first band I saw when I finally started going to gigs again after my long spell away in the depression days. They were fantastic, everything I could have wanted to help me get back into music, and I hardly noticed that it was a bitterly cold, wet Monday evening in November! This video, which I think has a bit of a feel of American Gothic about it, was directed by Scott Cudmore, who is from Toronto, where the band are based. His website is also short on details, and this one isn’t included in his music videos section: I’m being charitable, I think, in suggesting that this may be because it was quite some while back, and not because the GLS aren’t as famous as Kacey Musgraves or Selena Gomez, with whom has also worked. This is a typical GLS song, so if you liked it I can recommend following them up – my favourite of their albums is New Wild Everywhere.

Back on more familiar ground for my next tune, I think:

River Of Dreams is the title track and lead single of Billy Joel’s twelfth album. The single came out in July 1993, a month before the album, and reached #3 in both the US and the UK. The album also peaked at #3 in the UK, but made #1 in the US. The video features the Rocky Hill – Glastonbury Ferry in Connecticut, and was shot on the Providence & Worcester railroad bridge spanning the Connecticut River. Billy and his backup singers are standing on the western span of the bridge, with the open centre section behind them. Other locations that were filmed  are near Portland, East Haddam, and Old Saybrook, Connecticut and the tobacco barn was still in use at the time. His then-wife Christie Brinkley can be seen painting the artwork that features on the front cover of the album: each single released from the album featured one part of the large painting as cover art. The single went Gold in the US for 500k sales, and Silver in the UK for 200k. The album, was an even bigger success, going 5x Platinum in the US for 5m sales, and Platinum in the UK for 300k. It remains his last studio album release to date, if you discount a later collection of piano pieces. There have been a few live albums since then, but I guess he has kind of retired!

Today’s penultimate tune is the one which I think some may know, but may be new to others:

Dreams was the debut single by The Cranberries, released in October 1992 and peaking at #9 in their native Ireland, at #27 in the UK and at #42 in the US. Despite the apparent low chart placing it has been hugely successful here in the UK, being awarded a Platinum Disc for more than 600k sales. It was then included on their first album – Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? – which came out in March 1993 and went on to even greater success. It was #1 in both Ireland and the UK, and made #18 in the US, and has sold more than 5m copies in the US (5x Platinum) and 600k in the UK (2x Platinum). They enjoyed continued success with both albums and singles, but disbanded after their singer Dolores O’Riordan drowned in the bath in a London hotel in January 2018, at the age of just 46. They released one final album after that, featuring the vocals she had already recorded for it: it has the fitting title of In The End, which is also its closing track.

I’m ending today with a song that a couple of you mentioned last week. I was never leaving this one out, though:

These Dreams first appeared on Heart’s eighth album, Heart, which was released in July 1985, back in the days of big hair. It got to #1 in the US and #19 in the UK, selling more than 5m copies in the US alone – just the 100k here! The track then became the third single taken from the album, in January 1986, also making #1 in the US, but only #62 in the UK. It was re-released here in 1988, though, and made #8 second time round. Unusually for the band they didn’t write most of its songs – this one was written by Bernie Taupin, taking a break from Reg, and Martin Page, a serial collaborating songwriter and bass player. Heart (based around Nancy and Anne Wilson) have made a number of great albums in their 50 years together, but I suspect they will be most remembered for their magnificent performance of Stairway To Heaven at the Kennedy Centre event honouring Led Zeppelin. Such is life, I guess!

That’s all for today, but I feel a third set of these may be coming along at some point: this is a fertile field! Until then, be safe and well, and I’ll see you again soon 😊