I was probably 13 or so when it was on the radio and I remember liking the song. Never bought the album, the only one I ever had was Toys in the Attic, and for about 40 years since I have not listened much to Aerosmith, never remembered the song.
Dream On just popped up on a random Spotify playlist. What a great song. I am now playing it again. What a great song. The guitar. The tone of that intro, and the fills during the verses.
Very popular when I was a junior in college. All over the radio. I have to confess that I wasn’t too fond of it myself at the time and it would probably have been completely forgotten if it weren’t for Aerosmith going on to be the popular band they did.
To me, it always seemed a bit longer than it needed to be, but that’s just me. Decent sound, though.
One of the all-time great “turn it up when it comes on the car radio and sing along” songs…that is, until the end where Stephen Tyler hits those upper stratosphere notes, and I’m like nope, not even going to try to match that and shred my vocal cords.
Not really a band I followed. And I have almost no interest in Tyler. But definitely the vocal part is what makes it a hit. The guitars etc add to it, but it would have beeb a hit no matter who played on it. Dream On (Aerosmith song) - Wikipedia
It’s an okay song, but I agree with this somewhat. It kinda gets bombastic the longer it drags on, becoming almost Meatloaf-adjacent. Unfortunately, the band has not aged will with me, so I might be biased.
The song was originally released a few years before I was born but got popular again in the early 1990s on MTV when it was played live. In the early 2000s it was featured in an ad for a video game, Ninja Gaiden I think, and I remember a game reviewer poking fun at it. “What does Dream On have to do with ninjas? I don’t know.”
I’ve never gotten tired of it because I don’t remember it ever being overplayed on the radio or even on MTV. It’s a great song.
I could do this for one of my Mondegreen polls. For DECADES I would have been certain the chorus was:
Singwoman, sing for the years
Obviously Steven T. is urging this female, presumably one he is in a relationship with, to give vent to her deepest feelings in perfect harmony with himself.
Imagine my shock when the internet came around and all the lyric sites insist it is this:
Sing with me, sing for the years
Which leaves who is he asking to sing in accompainment with himself completely unknown, thus taking quite a bit of lyrical depth away. Just a generic fan out there somewhere I guess.
Having just listened to it (for the first time in many years), I can hear now why I thought it was my mondegreen: Steven T. doesn’t enunciate the “th” sound in the word “with” at all, so he is actually singing “Sing whuh meh” which indeed sounds a lot like “woman” instead. I also think this could still be the actual lyric in point of fact, unless Tyler has specifically given his Word of God on it in an interview somewhere.
I usually hear this crap from the likes of Michael Stipe or Geddy Lee, but the needs of singing can often be at odds with how people would talk in actual conversation.
[In REM’s “Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight”, Stipe tries to squeeze 8 syllables into the space for just 5, so “Call me when you try to wake her” indeed sounds more like “Calling Jamaica”. In Rush’s “Subdivisions”, Lee omits the first “s” sound in “In the backs of cars” so it sounds more like “In the battlecars”. In “Fly By Night”, he infamously omits the word “my” in “My ship isn’t coming” except for the final iteration where you can barely hear it, so again it more akin to “[My] She feels it coming” instead, making my youthful self wonder who this phantom female is (who keeps showing up in other songs). This kind of stuff is what indeed breeds mondegreens, where you cannot blame the listener, at all.]
Steven Tyler is so great at belting out lyrics. I swear there’s something inspiring about listening to a song where you can tell the singer is not holding back at all. Some of my faves are “Angel,” “What It Takes,” and “Crazy.”
I’m older and of the age that it was massively overplayed. I’ve heard it enough for my lifetime.
This I don’t understand. I was about 3 when it came out. However, I heard this song so much on the classic rock stations in the 80s and 90s! I couldn’t imagine how much I would’ve heard it if I had another decade+ of listening!
Up until then, you’re thinking, wait; this is Aerosmith, right? I’m pretty sure I remember hearing that this is Aerosmith. Okay, don’t overthink it; this is probably Aerosmith.
