Chart Week: May 15, 1987
Song: “Don’t Dream It’s Over” – Crowded House
Chart Position: #15, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for one week in April.

A few months ago, as I moved into posts 90-plus in this series, I considered whether I should do something special for number 100. Then I realized that since these entries are pretty sporadic, there was no way to predict where in the calendar we would be until we got to Volume 100.

Amazingly, organically, without any effort on my part – I swear! – it coincides with me hearing a couple countdowns from the spring of 1987. Both of which featured my all-time favorite song at or near its peak.

You may laugh when I reference the Music Gods. They are real, though, and they are mighty.

I’ve written about how much “Don’t Dream It’s Over” means to me several times over the years. A quick refresher: it arrived on the radio shortly after I started classes at my new high school in the Bay Area. I struggled to make friends right away, and I was bummed that all my California dreams had not come true the instant I set foot in the Golden State. As this record climbed the Hot 100 that spring, Neil Finn’s bittersweet lyrics and music resonated with me.

What struck me most was how the song addressed the loneliness and disappointment inside me, while also serving as a guide for climbing out of that depression. Even when Finn is singing about being overwhelmed and let down, there is a strong thread of resilience and even defiance in his music. If you can just hang on through the bad times, he seemed to be saying, better ones are sure to come.

Finn is one of the greatest pop songwriters of any era, and he packs so many wonderful elements into “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” There’s his opening riff, which sets the tone for the bumpy ride that is ahead, descending notes immediately followed by ascending ones. There is the way his vocals convey emotion, sounding weary and resigned in the first two verses, then strong and hopeful in the choruses and final verse. Mitchell Froom’s melancholic organ solo is countered by Finn’s bright, optimistic guitar. There’s the single-beat pause in the final verse, a simple yet brilliant choice. As the tune slowly fades, Finn and the backing vocals are lifting you up while Froom’s organ is again in opposition. Finn is economical, yet loads each lyric with great meaning.

Ironically, for as much as I love “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and as much as it has meant to me for the last 37 years, I’m having a hard time writing about it. That’s probably for the best. No one needs me breaking it down, line by line, throwing all that accumulated history at each of Finn’s words.

Neil Finn is one of the most important artists in my musical life. I adore so much of what he’s done in his career, from the songs he wrote as a teenager for his big brother Tim’s band Split Enz,[1] to the three eras of Crowded House, then again with Tim as The Finn Brothers, to his excellent solo work, to the 7 Worlds Collide project.[2] My own Neil Finn Greatest Hits collection would stretch for 30 tracks? Forty? More?

In a career filled with magnificent, perfect, pop tunes, this is his crown jewel.

Hey now, hey now, it is a 10/10.

As a bonus, this is the final time the band’s original members performed the song together, closing their Farewell to the World concert in 1996 in front of a quarter million fans at the Sydney Opera House.