“Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House, Saturday, October 14, 2023

In 1986, Australian/New Zealand band Crowded House released their debut eponymous album. By April the next year, the band had a number 2 Hot 100 single, “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” The band is best known for this song, though they had several other hits in the U.S., the U.K., and their homelands of Australia and New Zealand. I knew the song from its 2003 cover by Sixpence None the Richer which was played both on Adult Contemporary radio and Christian stations, and didn’t know that it was a cover until my dad said it was originally by an ‘80s band. 

TRY TO CATCH A DELUGE IN A PAPER CUP. Before my sister could call into TVU’s Most Wanted Countdown to yell her vote on the phone: “I’m calling to vote for Sixpence None the Richer because they’re smooth like me!”— which host David thought sounded like “rude like me” only to be corrected by the offscreen engineer who correctly heard “smooth like me”—before any of that could happen, the band had to be pressured for a hit from their 2002 album Divine Discontent. The band was pressured to include a cover of “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” which they did willingly because, according to an article published by CNN, the band was a fan of Crowded House’s lead singer, Neil Finn. The song was Sixpence None the Richer’s second single from their album Divine Discontent and their last trip to the Hot 100. After listening to both versions of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” recently, I have a stronger sense of nostalgia for the Sixpence version, but I feel like the Crowded House version has more interesting guitar tones that don’t even feel like they were recorded in 1986. 

THERE’S A BATTLE AHEAD, MANY BATTLES ARE LOST. When my dad talked about “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” he referred to it as an anti-war song. Looking at the history of the band Crowded House, it makes sense, though, I couldn’t find anything about the band specifically talking about an anti-war message. Throughout their career, Crowded House had been involved with various causes from Save the Children to AIDS awareness. The song was released within a few years of the downfall of the Soviet Union. But at that time, the world still felt uncertain, at least I’m told. Then in 2003, The United States was in the middle of two wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. The fear of 9/11 was beginning to wear off on the American people, and even some Christians—maybe even Sixpence None the Richer, though I don’t want to speak on behalf of the band—were questioning the war. Crowded House talks more about the song being about having optimism even when the world and personal situations seem dire. So, thirty-seven years and twenty years after the two versions, there are new problems: an unrelenting war between Russia and Ukraine and a war between Israel and Palestine. It feels like the world is falling apart, but giving up isn’t an option. If we do, we let the world “build a wall between us” and we let the division win.

Read the lyrics on Genius.

Crowded House version:

Sixpence None the Richer version: