Well if it's good enough for Shakey (William, not Stevens) then it must be a subject rich for the arts. here's a music chart of Dream themed songs (but not David Essex's "Silver Dream Racer")
1) Sonic Youth - "I Dreamed I Dream"
An early SY song this, before their layered sound had really started to cohere. But it's still brooding with menace and the husband and wife swapped vocals is really effective. Kim Gordon's book "Girl in A Band" has just come out. She was anything but that in Sonic Youth.
2) London Underground - "Dreams Are Better"
Spacy, dubby soundscape does conjure up a dreamy sensibility.
3) Mamas And Papas - "California Dreaming"
Infinitely prefer this version than the Beach Boys, even prepared to overlook the fashion faux pas.
4) The Fall - "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"
If you're going to include a Fall song in any music themed chart, chances are Mark E Smith's sensibilities are going to cut against the grain of the theme and sure enough, here the Hip Priest warbles his disapproval of the Wigan Casino's soul capital reputation.
5) Gang of Four - "We Live As We Dream Alone"
A quote from Joseph Conrad and I always want to put a comma after the 'Dream' and before the 'Alone'. Talking of fashion faux pas... Still one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands.
6) Fire Engines - "Big Gold Dream"
Here's a band that somehow haven't featured in a chart of mine before even though I really like them. The perspective is very odd here, the band look like tall thin giants compared to the dancers in the front.
7) Magik Markers - "Bad Dream"
I only discovered this band relatively recently and their album "Boss" has gone into my all-time top 20. Usually wig-out noise merchants, this shows an alarming degree of disturbia through a much lighter touch. Fabulous.
8) Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls - "Dream Sequence 1"
Pauline Murray sounding just like she did when fronting punk band Penetration, though with more poppy backing than the thrash 3 chords of punk.
9) New Order - "Dreams Never End'
Fascinating track that shows the partial emergence of the New Order sound from that of Joy Division, but still with its roots very much traceable. They all look so tentative here.
10) Suicide - "Dream Baby Dream"
If there was ever a soundtrack of nightmares, Alan Vega provided it.
11) Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This"
I wasn't really a fan of the 80s, most of my favourite bands expired in the early 80s. I always associate this song with the grim politics of the era. A kind of corporate sponsored vision of nightmarishness.
12) Supertramp - "Dreamer"
Before punk came along, I used to listen to stuff like this. Thank god for punk I say. These days this sounds like Leo Sayer to me. Crime of the century? That this type of music held sway for so long.
13) Television - The Dream's Dream"
This was probably around a similar time to the Supertramp and represented a precursor of punk and new wave that swept away the old rock dinosaurs. But these guys could still play their instruments, apart from Richard Hell obviously!
14) Nas - "Sweet Dreams"
I like Nas, but he really needs to get himself a decent artistic director to make his videos. they're all the same and universally awful.
15) Chemical Brothers - "Dream On"
They're called the Chemical Brothers for a reason. Spacemen 3 would have killed for this song.
16) Electric Prunes - "I had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)"
Dressed like choirboys yet their sound was a distortion, fuzzed up glorious romp.
17) Tricky - "Bad Dreams"
And we're back with the paranoia latent in dreams. or not so latent in this case. Tricky regarded all life as a bad dream.
18) Lil Kim - "Dreams"
Oh do get on with it! Once she's 43 seconds in it really locks in to a remorselessly mean vibe.
19) The Bug - "Thief Of Dreams"
Dubstep is supposedly an edgy dreamy urban soundscape and The Bug is all that and more. But the vocalist in this spins a terrifying narrative that is anything but dream like.
20) Minutemen - 'Dream Told By Moto"
Or the 4 minute warning till the bomb drops... no dream this for us in the 80s, we really had these thoughts and anxieties.
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