Album version
Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
Come on and dream baby dream
We gotta keep the light burning
Come on, we gotta keep the light burning
Come on, we gotta keep the light burning
Come on, we gotta keep the light burning
Come on and dream baby dream
We gotta keep the fire burning
Come on, we gotta keep the fire burning
Come on, we gotta keep the fire burning
Come on and dream baby dream
Come 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 and open up your heart
Come on and open up your hearts
Come on and open up your hearts
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on, we gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, we gotta keep on dreaming
Come on, we gotta keep on dreaming
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Come on darling and dry your eyes
Come on baby and dry your eyes
Come on baby and dry your eyes
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 and open up your hearts
Come on and open up your hearts
Come on and open up your hearts
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
And 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
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
Yeah I just wanna see you smile
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 on baby
Come on dream on, dream on baby
Come on dream on, dream on baby
Come on dream on, dream baby dream
Ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah
DREAM BABY DREAM is a 1979 song by Suicide. See the original Suicide version for more details.
Bruce Springsteen released DREAM BABY DREAM on his 2014 album High Hopes. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's album version of DREAM BABY DREAM as released on High Hopes.
During the Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour, Springsteen played his modified version of Suicide's DREAM BABY DREAM on the pump organ with synthesizer in the background played by his keyboard technician Alan "Fitz" Fitzgerald. At the end of the song, he 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."
Alan Vega attended Springsteen's 20 Jul 2005 show in Bridgeport, CT. "I'm still high from that show. Now I can die. Not only he's 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 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 talked 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.
A recording of the 20 Jul 2005 performance of DREAM BABY DREAM was made available for streaming on Blast First (Petite)'s MySpace page. The recording is apparently from an audience source.
"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 a December 1984 interview for Rolling Stone, Springsteen told Kurt Loder that Suicide was among the bands he was listening to lately. "They had that two-piece synthesizer-voice thing. They had one of the most amazing songs I ever heard." He added that "Frankie Teardrop" was one of the most amazing records he ever heard.
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Springsteen told Andy Greene: "They are underground masters, to me. Just one of the greatest. Alan Vega, one of the greatest. They should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in my opinion. They are just amazing. I loved them, and they had an influence on Nebraska in a roundabout way."
Springsteen recorded DREAM BABY DREAM in studio in 2013 and included it on his 2014 album High Hopes. The album version is very similar to the 2005 live version but features additional instruments (including Tom Morello on guitar) and choral voices towards the end. In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Ron Aniello told Andy Greene that Springsteen played him DREAM BABY DREAM and said it was an experience more than anything at the end of his Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour shows. "It took a lot to get that experience on a record for him. We had to do that song probably 10 times — different versions of it — until he was satisfied it was the right version."
The album version of DREAM BAY DREAM was produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen. The performing musicians line-up on the track is:
On 10 Oct 2013, Springsteen posted a personal thank you note to his fans on his official website. A video was simultaneously posted on his website and his YouTube channel commemorating the 18-month/133-date long Wrecking Ball Tour which concluded the previous month. The video features highlights from the tour edited by Thom Zimny and is set to the new 2013 studio recording of DREAM BABY DREAM mixed by Bob Clearmountain.
According to Zimny, work on the video began before the Wrecking Ball Tour ended. He initially cut footage for the video using the live 28 Oct 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM, but shortly thereafter he received a copy of the new studio version which, as he later explained, took the editing of the video to another place.
Seasick Steve appears in the video; he was watching Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 28 May 2012 show in Landgraaf, The Netherlands, during Pinkpop Festival. The American blues musician was on that day's bill which was headlined by Springsteen and the band.
High Hopes is Bruce Springsteen's eighteenth studio album. It was officially released on 14 Jan 2014 on Columbia Records. It consists of 12 tracks and clocks at 56:24. Four songs were previously released in different versions (two of which are covers), two more were previously performed live but never released, and the remaining six are new to fans (one of which is a cover). "This is music I always felt needed to be released," Springsteen wrote in the album's liner notes.
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Springsteen told Andy Greene that he has always written and recorded significantly more songs than can fit on to whatever album he's creating at the moment. "I have a lot of this music on a computer," he said. "I bring it out on the road to amuse myself. Very often, if I have nothing to do late at night I'll bring it up and look at different bodies of music." The songs that began catching Springsteen's attention were largely recorded after he reunited with the E Street Band in 1999. "The songs were relatively current and had a similar sound picture," he said. "I was interested in putting this material together in some form because it sounded like it all fit together... You have to imagine that when I'm home or done with a tour I go into a studio and I'm surrounded by paintings that I've sorta half-finished. There might be something wrong with this one and I didn't have time to finish this one. When I go into my studio, I'm surrounded by all my music that I haven't released. I wait to see what's going to speak to me." But then they cut a few sessions in 2013 while on tour. "I said, 'Well, these sound good,'" Springsteen told Rolling Stone. "These things blend together. Suddenly, it began to feel very fresh and fit together quite well."
Work on the album started in late 2012 when Springsteen called producer Ron Aniello asking him to work on some demos that he was thinking about releasing. "I remember that Bruce called me on my birthday, so it was December 9th, 2012", Aniello told Andy Greene in a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone. "He said to me, 'I have some songs. I want to get together.'" According to Aniello, these were old demos that Springsteen had done with Toby Scott and that had been around for a while. Springsteen told him that he wanted to get these songs in shape and see what comes out of that. Aniello was not able to sit with Springsteen to sort it all out because Springsteen was away most of the time touring with the E Street Band. "It all happened in a very unusual manner," Aniello told Rolling Stone. "There was a lot of conversations in Europe and I did some of the recording via iChat when the band was in Australia."
In a January 2014 interview for Rolling Stone, Tom Morello told Andy Greene that he wasn't aware that there was ever talk of a new studio album when they sent him a couple of songs to add guitar on. He did that in his home studio and shortly after he was recording in studio with Max Weinberg and Ron Aniello. "But these studio sessions just kept occurring without any formal notion of what we were doing," Morello recounted. "My assumption was just that 'Bruce is always recording music.' So it was fantastic that I was asked to be a part of it. I was psyched." In March 2013 Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed ten shows in Australia as part of the Wrecking Ball Tour. Steven Van Zandt was off filming his television series Lillyhammer and was replaced by Morello for that leg of the tour. Morello suggested to add HIGH HOPES to the live set. They worked it up during the rehearsals prior to the Australian shows and Morello then "proceeded to burn the house down with it," as Springsteen said. They then re-cut the song along with JUST LIKE FIRE WOULD at Studios 301, Australia's largest studio complex. "Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level," Springsteen said. He told Rolling Stone's David Fricke, "We've never had a recording session during a tour in our lives. We did a couple of things that I wanted to put down. So that was very exciting. And being with Tommy was exciting. The band — Steven, Nils, all those guys — continues to be a source of inspiration for me." Morello told Rolling Stone that he didn't get the notion that this was "coalescing into what was going to be a major release" until they were in Australia.
No less than sixteen recording studios were used in the making of High Hopes: Thrill Hill Recording (Springsteen's home studio in Colts Neck, NJ), Stone Hill Studio (Springsteen's new home studio in Colts Neck, NJ), Very Loud House (in Los Angeles, CA), Renegade Studio (in New York City, NY), Veritas Studio (in Los Angeles, CA), Southern Tracks (Atlanta, GA), East West Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), NRG Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), Village Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), Studios 301 (in Byron Bay and Sydney, Australia), Record Plant (in Los Angeles, CA), Electric Lady Studios (in New York City, NY), Avatar Studios (in New York City, NY), Sear Sound (in New York City, NY), and Berkeley Street Studio (in Santa Monica, CA).
Ron Aniello revealed that at least 20 tracks were recorded for the album. Among the tracks that didn't make the album cut were COLD SPOT, HEY BLUE EYES, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and MARY MARY.
The album was produced by Bruce Springsteen, Brendan O'Brien, and Ron Aniello. It features all E Street Band members, including the late Clarence Clemons and the late Danny Federici on several songs of what Springsteen calls "some of our best unreleased material from the past decade." The album also features an ensemble of guest artists, including Tom Morello who's featured prominently on the album, appearing on eight tracks.
High Hopes is available in three configurations: standard CD edition, limited edition, and double-disc LP. The limited edition consists of the standard audio CD and includes a bonus live DVD of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performing the entire Born In The U.S.A. album on 30 Jun 2013 at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, England, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. The double-disc LP is pressed on 180-gram vinyl and includes a CD version of the album.
High Hopes was officially announced on 25 Nov 2013 and the release date was set for 14 Jan 2014, but on 28 Dec 2013 it became available for purchase as individual tracks in MP3 format through Amazon.com's mobile application. Although Amazon quickly removed the files, presumably recognizing its mistake, the album had already made its way onto file-sharing websites.
The album topped the charts in 20 countries, including the United States and the UK. It was Springsteen's eleventh #1 album in the US, placing him third all-time for most #1 albums only behind The Beatles and Jay-Z. It was his tenth #1 in the UK, putting him joint fifth all-time and level with The Rolling Stones and U2.
| Country | Chart | Peak position |
| Australia | Aria Top 50 Albums Chart | 1 |
| Austria | Alben Top 75 | 2 |
| Belgium | Ultratop 50 Albums (Flanders) | 1 |
| Belgium | Ultratop 50 Albums (Wallonia) | 2 |
| Canada | Billboard Top Canadian Albums | 1 |
| Croatia | Arhiva Kombiniranih (all artists chart) | 1 |
| Czech Republic | ČNS IFPI - CZ Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| Denmark | Album 40 | 1 |
| Finland | Suomen Virallinen Albumilista | 1 |
| France | Top 200 Albums | 2 |
| Germany | Media Control Charts Top 100 Albums | 1 |
| Greece | 1 | |
| Hungary | Top 40 Albums | 12 |
| Ireland | Top 100 Individual Artist Albums | 1 |
| Italy | Top 20 Albums | 1 |
| Japan | Japan Hot 100 | 8 |
| New Zealand | Album Top 40 | 1 |
| Norway | VG-lista Topp 40 Album | 1 |
| Poland | Poland Albums Top 50 | 6 |
| Portugal | Albums Top 30 | 4 |
| Slovenia | 1 | |
| South Africa | 5 | |
| South Korea | 83 | |
| Spain | Album Top 100 | 1 |
| Sweden | Sverigetopplistan Albums Top 60 | 1 |
| Switzerland | Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| The Netherlands | Album Top 100 | 1 |
| UK | Official UK Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| USA | Billboard 200 | 1 |
Other versions of DREAM BABY DREAM were also officially released.
DREAM BABY DREAM was performed 64 times during the Devils & Dust Solo Acoustic Tour (72 dates, April to November 2005). The song debuted on 11 May 2005 in Chicago, IL, (the ninth official date of tour) and from then on the song closed every single show on the tour. Springsteen titled the song "Dream" on the shows' handwritten setlists. The 20 Jul 2005 performance of DREAM BABY DREAM in Bridgeport, CT, was dedicated to its writer Suicide's Alan Vega who was in attendance. The live 25 Jun 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM was released on the Stockholm 2005 official live download in 2020. The live 31 Jul 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM was released on the Schottenstein Center, Ohio 2005 official live download in 2015. The live 03 Aug 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM was released on the Van Andel Arena, Michigan 2005 official live download in 2018. The live 28 Oct 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM was released on the Dream Baby Dream EP in 2008. The live 22 Nov 2005 version of DREAM BABY DREAM was released on the Sovereign Bank Arena, Trenton, NJ 2005 official live download in 2019.
Bruce Springsteen has been performing on almost all the annual Stand Up for Heroes benefits since 2007. DREAM BABY DREAM was performed during the seventh (2013) annual benefit. The song was played on pump organ. See the live 06 Nov 2013 version for more details.
In preparation for the High Hopes Tour, DREAM BABY DREAM is known to have been practiced during at least one of the private rehearsals that took place in January 2014 in Cape Town prior to the tour's first leg.
DREAM BABY DREAM was performed 6 times during the High Hopes Tour (34 dates, January to May 2014). The song was the show closer and was played in a harmonium solo arrangement. Audio recordings for most High Hopes Tour shows are officially available for purchase. See the live 08 Apr 2014 version for more details.
List of available versions of DREAM BABY DREAM on this website:
DREAM BABY DREAM [Album version]
