Hey Now, Hey Now, Don't Dream You Only Had One Big U.S. Hit Single

Why didn't they just ... move into a bigger house? Build an extra room? Get a futon? Maybe one of the guys could've slept in the car? Look at it this way: at least the rent was probably cheap. On the other hand, "Crowded House" was probably a much stronger name than the band's original choice, "The Mullanes." Yowsers.

While these days he's serving as the awkward new substitute for Lindsey Buckingham in the international conglomerate otherwise known as Fleetwood Mac, back in the day, Neil Finn wasn't even the main singer/songwriter in his former band. Hell, he wasn't even the main Finn brother in his former band. That said, older brother Tim, either with Split Enz or solo, never had an American hit the size of "Don't Dream It's Over." Though Crowded House more or less feels like a one-hit wonder, it turns out they actually had another Top 10 U.S. single: "Something So Strong" peaked at #7. Apparently it wasn't "strong" enough to stay in the popular consciousness, because I don't remember hearing it much at the time, nor have I heard it much since. I'm sure it has its partisans; it sounds like a Paul Carrack B-side to me. But you know what? If Americans only remember Crowded House for one song (they were regular fixtures on the UK and Australian singles charts all the way into the late '90s), well, it's one hell of a song:

There is freedom within
There is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead
Many battles are lost
But you'll never see the end of the road
While you're travelling with me

Hey now, Hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, Hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win

Now I'm towing my car
There's a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion
But there's no proof
In the paper today
Tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the TV page

Now I'm walking again
To the beat of a drum
And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead
Barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and release

Here's how great of a song "Don't Dream It's Over" is: I only realized, just now, after 30 years of having listened to this sucker, when I copied and pasted these lyrics, that the lines hardly even rhyme! Hey man, rhymes are just walls people are trying to build between Neil Finn and his poignant, abstract observations, OK? The lyrics have this intriguingly vague '80s mixture of "We're gonna make it, baby" relationship imagery and "The Cold War's almost over, I can taste it" political hopefulness. Besides, when you've got a massive, jangly guitar that's jangling all the way into next Tuesday (particularly at 1:21 and 2:46), who needs rhymes? Not to mention a hymn-like organ and those eerily high-pitched harmonies on the octave-jumping chorus. Yep. They built this one to last.

Whether I like it or not, "Don't Dream It's Over" is one of those songs that immediately, unavoidably ... takes me back. I find its sad, aching quality two-fold: I feel the sadness that the song itself conjures, and I also feel the sadness of all the time that has passed since this song was blanketing the radio waves, and the sadness of all the ways in which my life has changed in thirty years, both "within" and "without." It's the kind of song I can't listen to too closely, or I'll get crushed by the weight of those pesky little things called ... what are those things called again? You know, they used to be in pop songs all the time but they rarely have them anymore? Wait, it's coming to me ... "emotions"! That's what they're called. The moment the song is over, I kind of want to put on "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car," just to lighten the mood.

One more observation: I remember listening, back in high school, to a radio special about the history of rock and roll, and after airing a segment about John Lennon's assassination, the program promptly played "Don't Dream It's Over." As a result, for years, I assumed this song was somehow related to Lennon's death, or the "end of the '60s," but if it is, Wikipedia sure doesn't have anything to say about it. I've often wondered why that radio special would have chosen to play this particular song in relation to that event; "Don't Dream It's Over" didn't even come out until 1986, by which point the phenomenal success of Yoko Ono's solo career had long rendered John a distant memory. But recently I recalled that "God" on Plastic Ono Band contains the iconic lyric, "The dream is over." Surely Mr. Finn was aware of this lyric somewhere in the back of his mind, yes? Indeed, in 1986 it surely must have felt like "the dream," however one chose to define it, most definitely was over. Hell, Lennon proclaimed the dream "over" ... in 1970! By 1986 "the dream" must have looked like a shriveled corpse soaked in formaldehyde, floating face-up in the neighbor's algae-ridden pool. "Tales of war and of waste/But you turn right over to the TV page"? Damn right I do. Who wants to hear about Nicaragua and AIDS? What time is Perfect Strangers on? But Neil Finn hadn't given up on the dream, damn it. Bruce Hornsby, you've got company.

The tastefully surreal video was apparently a nice resume-builder for future The Crow/Dark City director Alex Proyas. I know that things work a little differently in New Zealand than they do here in the northern hemisphere, but you'd think they'd do something about that floating, shattering dish problem they seem to have. Hey now, hey now, somebody get a dustpan.