DREAM BABY DREAM^©

Live 28 Oct 2005 version

[Spoken intro:] Alright, this is for Dave. Dave, I'm gonna send this one out to you tonight. [chuckles] Had a great time yesterday.

Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream

Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream

Keep the fire burning
We gotta keep the light burning
Come on, we gotta keep the light burning
Come on, you gotta keep the fire burning
Come on and dream baby dream

Come on and dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on baby and dry your eyes
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on baby and dry your eyes
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on, you gotta keep a fire burning
Come on, you gotta keep the light burning
Come on you gotta keep a light burning
Come on and dream baby dream

Well I just wanna see you smile
Now I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Now I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Come on dream on, dream baby dream

Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, you gotta keep on dreaming
Come on dream on, dream baby dream

Come on, we gotta keep a light burning
Come on, you gotta keep a light burning
Come on, we gotta keep a light burning
Come on dream on, dream baby dream

Come on baby and dry your eyes
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on dream on, dream baby dream

Come on and open up your heart
Come on and open up your heart
Come on and open up your heart
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on and open up your heart
Come on and open up your heart
Come on and open up your heart
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Yeah come on and open up your heart
Oh come on and open up your heart
Yeah come on and open up your heart
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Now I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Come on dream on, dream baby dream

Page last updated: 02 Nov 2008

Intro

DREAM BAY DREAM is a 1979 single by the band Suicide. Check out Suicide's original version for more details. Bruce Springsteen, who was influenced by the band, closed his Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour shows with a solo version of DREAM BABY DREAM. Note that Springsteen wrote the song title DREAM on the shows' handwritten setlists.

Springsteen and Suicide

"I've liked Suicide for a long time," Springsteen told Mojo in an October 2005 interview. "I met the guys late in the '70s in New York City, when we were in the studio at the same time. You know, if Elvis came back from the dead I think he would sound like Alan Vaga. He gets a lot of emotional purity. I came across 'Dream Baby Dream' again because Michael Stipe included it on a compilation and I thought maybe I could do it."

In his 06 Dec 1984 interview for Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder had this exchange with Springsteen:

Rolling Stone: What bands have you been listening to lately?
Bruce Springsteen: I listen to a lot of different types of things. I like U2, Divinyls, Van Morrison. I like the band Suicide.
Rolling Stone: That makes sense: "State Trooper," one of the songs on Nebraska, sounds very much like Suicide.
Bruce Springsteen: Yeah. They had that two-piece synthesizer-voice thing. They had one of the most amazing songs I ever heard. It was about a guy that murders...
Rolling Stone: "Frankie Teardrop"?
Bruce Springsteen: Yeah! Oh, my God! That's one of the most amazing records I think I ever heard. I really love that record.

Springsteen's version

Springsteen played his modified version of Suicide's DREAM BABY DREAM on the pump organ with synthesizer in the background (played by Bruce's keyboard technician Alan "Fitz" Fitzgerald). The song is repetitive, but that adds to its strength. At the end of the song, Bruce just stands up, focuses the mantra directly at the crowd before him, "I just wanna see you smile", and then walks off the stage while singing the last line, with the synthesizer still playing and the lights dimming.

Springsteen told Mojo: "It's a mantra and it works because the night is filled with so much narrative and detail and then at the end there's just those few phrases repeated and they are the essence of everything else I'm saying and doing in the course of the evening. The night opens and opens and then, at the end, when you think it can't open any more it does and it's completely embracing. It's yeah, I guess... I have an eye for a lot of detail and this is a lesson in, uh, 'What is a song?' It's so purely musical, that's what's beautiful about it, it's so simple and so purely musical."

Live History

Bruce Springsteen debuted DREAM BABY DREAM on 11 May 2005 at Rosemont Theatre, Chicago, IL. That was the 9th official date of the Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour. From then on, the song closed every single show of the tour, making a total of 64 appearances.

Suicide's Alan Vega was in attendance at Springsteen's 20 Jul 2005 show at Arena At Harbor Yard, Bridgeport, CT. Springsteen dedicated that night's performance of DREAM BABY DREAM to it's writer.

Alan Vega's comments

"I'm still high from that show [20 Jul 2005]. Now I can die. Not only he's [Springsteen] playing 'Dream Baby Dream,' but it's the big encore song, the last song of the show," Alan Vega told Backstreets Magazine in an interview. "A lot of bands have done my stuff, Suicide stuff [...] Thank god, finally somebody did their version of it. He [Springsteen] interpreted my song, he did it his way, and such a great way that I'm going to have to sing it that way, or not sing it at all anymore!" In the interview, Vega talks about Springsteen's version of DREAM BABY DREAM, the Bridgeport show, how he first met Springsteen, the Nebraska album, and much more... At the end of the interview, when asked what's his favorite Springsteen song, Vega answered "'Dream Baby Dream.' On my death bed, that's the last thing I'm going to listen to. I'll play it at my funeral." The full interview can be found in the Winter 2005/2006 (#83/84) issue of Backstreets Magazine.

Official Release

Springsteen's live 28 Oct 2005 performance of DREAM BABY DREAM at T. D. Banknorth Garden, Boston, MA, was officially released in October 2008 on Dream Baby Dream, a UK-only various artists 10" vinyl EP (Blastfirstpetite, catalogue # PTYY 017). The official release date is 06 Oct 2008 in the UK and 28 Oct 2008 in the USA. The release commemorates Suicide vocalist Alan Vega's 70th birthday. It is limited to 8,000 copies, pressed in two different runs of 4,000 each. It comes in a black-and-white cardboard picture sleeve with individually numbered sticker on rear. The track was also available for official download in mp3 or FLAC formats on the Blast First (Petite) label's website, and as an mp4 on iTunes. According to Backstreets, the seven-minute audio is taken from the yet-to-be-completed Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour DVD.

Springsteen's live version of DREAM BABY DREAM was also included in October 2008 on Alan Vega 70th Vinyl Series Radio Promo CD # 1, a UK-only various artists promotional CD5 EP (Blastfirstpetite, catalogue # PCD 001). Although actually being a promotional pressing, this EP was also sold commercially by the label itself via their official website. Bruce's surname is misspelt "Spingsteen" on the disc.

Credits / references

Thanks Jake (ol'catfishinthelake from BTX and Greasy Lake) for the lyrics help. Info and some scans for the above official releases are taken from the Lost In The Flood website.