Crowded House: Don't Dream It's Over

Today’s TV Thursdays’ song was used in numerous TV episodes and promotional advertisements in the US; therefore, it would be difficult to enumerate them all. So I'll be lazy and not even try. Crowded House from New Zealand released “Don’t Dream it's Over” in 1986 on their debut LP. It charted at #2 in the US and was a number one record in Canada and their native New Zealand.

This was one of my favorite songs of the mid 1980s. So much so, I used to perform this with the bands The Game and Lyvyn Daylytz. While the range was a little high for me even then, we tended to do this later in a set to give my vocal chords time to stretch. Being that this was over 20 years ago, it would be impossible for me to even try and hit those high notes these days.

I also loved the Hammond organ on this song and would emulate it with my Prophet 5. The Prophet’s setting at 23 was the perfect sound for this organ part. The mod wheel even allowed for a pseudo Leslie speaker effect. This was before I got my Oberheim OB-3X (Hammond emulator) which can sound exactly like the real thing.