“Don’t Dream It’s Over”

August 23, 2022 • 2:00 pm

For some reason I think that “Don’t dream it’s over“, by Crowded House, pairs nicely with “Everybody wants to rule the world,” a song I wrote about just recently. The lyrics of both songs are enigmatic and subject to varied interpretations, the former was released in 1986, a year after the Tears for Fears song, both have inventive and clever melodies, and both were hits: “Don’t dream it’s over” rose to #2 on the billboard charts and “Everybody wants to rule the world” to #1. When I maintained that the Tears for Fears song was one of the few great pieces of rock from the Eighties (as is this song), I got some pushback, but I stand my ground.

“Don’t dream it’s over” was written by Kiwi Neil Finn, who performs it here on lead along with bassist Nick Seymour and drummer Paul Hester. The bass line is strong and especially good.

As I said, the lyrics are somewhat obscure. It clearly involves (possibly unrequited) love, but then there are lyrics like this:

… Now I’m towing my carThere’s a hole in the roofMy possessions are causing me suspicionBut there’s no proofIn the paper todayTales of war and of wasteBut you turn right over to the TV page

and this is a bit clearer but still not that clear:

… Now I’m walking againTo the beat of a drumAnd I’m counting the steps to the door of your heartOnly shadows aheadBarely clearing the roofGet to know the feeling of liberation and release

The live performance below is said to be from their 1996 farewell tour. Recognize the venue?

I found a podcast in which Finn discusses the song’s meaning, but I won’t listen to it until after I post this, as I don’t want to be influenced in my interpretation.

Here are Finn and Seymour recreating their hit on acoustic guitars for 60 Minutes Australia.

19 thoughts on ““Don’t Dream It’s Over””

  1. I have Don’t Dream on my iTunes playlist. Always liked that song, but not much else by Crowded House.

    1. What about “4-seasons in one day”? I actually like a lot of Crowded House, and their previous incarnation Split Enz.

      1. “Four Seasons in One Day” is a great song. “Fall at Your Feet” and “Into Temptation” are two other Crowded House songs that I like. I also like some songs by The Finn Brothers. That was when Neil teamed up with his brother Tim (for two albums). “Won’t Give in” and “Disembodied Voices” are two favorites.

          1. Years ago I managed to find an acoustic version of “Only Talking Sense” that I might prefer to the original. I think it comes from a radio performance. The sound quality is excellent. I’d attach it here but I can’t do that with MP3s.

          2. There’s a wild thing in the woodshed…

            And Hollywood makes millions off that premise. Cheers!

  2. I much prefer the 80s to the 60s music you sometimes cover here. 🙂
    (Showing my 51 years age)
    D.A.
    NYC

  3. I think this is a terrific song, very atmospheric and emotional even if I’m not sure why. I always turn it up when it comes on the radio.

  4. Those Finn boys and band were heavily influenced by Mervyn Peake’s “Titus Groan” “Gormenghast” in their earlier year’s of Split Ends.
    Larger than life! but the Beatles are also in there.

  5. I remember reading that Lennon and McCartney heard that their songs were being analysed and discussed by some educational institute. Lennon immediately wrote a song with nonsense lyrics to give them something to talk about as they thought there was no inner meaning to their lyrics they were just made up rhymes.

  6. This one, Weather with You, and Fall at your Feet are my favourite Crowded House songs. Split Enz are great too. ‘Six months in a leaky boat’ (which was banned from British radio because they thought it was about the Falklands war when it was really about the colonisation of New Zealand), ‘I Got You’, ‘I See Red’, ‘Message to my Girl’, ‘Dirty Creature’, ‘I Hope I Never’… so many good songs!

    Other NZ greats from the 80s are Dave Dobbyn. ‘Be Mine Tonight’, which is about Auckland’s K-Road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks3R1gYEUAY&ab_channel=Th%27Dudes

    2. I did more reading about ‘Be Mine Tonight’ and found out that the ‘Asian Cigarettes’ are marijuana and the song is about the first time Dobbyn smoked it. It’s a great song opening line!

  7. I hope ya’ll will pardon a little name dropping, but the keyboard player in the first video is my brother-in-law, Mark Hart. He wasn’t a founding member of the band but he joined them after their first album and was with them for about 30 years or so.

  8. I don’t want to say that this is the case with the songs mentioned in the post, but I have always thought that some “obscure” lyrics in songs written in my native language simply mean nothing and are the product of petulant writers who want to sound profound selling air and/or of lazy ones who just take a bunch of words that rhyme and put them together to fill the space. Again, I am not arguing that is the case here but there are a couple of groups and singers in my country who absolutely fall in that category (or so I would bet).

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