Fleetwood Mac "Dreams (Single & Video)"

"Dreams" is a song by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, written by singer Stevie Nicks for the band's eleventh studio album, Rumours (1977). In the United States, "Dreams" was released as the second single from Rumours in March 1977, while in the United Kingdom, the song was released as the third single in June 1977. A stage performance of "Dreams" was used as the promotional music video.

In the US, "Dreams" sold more than one million copies and reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's only number-one single in the country. In Canada, "Dreams" also reached number one on the RPM Top 100 Singles chart.

In late 2020, the song experienced a widespread resurgence in popularity as a result of a viral TikTok video created by Nathan Apodaca. The song subsequently re-entered national music charts and also entered the Spotify and Apple Music charts in certain countries. "Dreams" was ranked number nine on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

The members of Fleetwood Mac were experiencing emotional upheavals while recording the Rumours album. Mick Fleetwood was going through a divorce. Christine McVie and John McVie were separating, while Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were ending their eight-year relationship. "We had to go through this elaborate exercise of denial," explained Buckingham to Blender magazine, "keeping our personal feelings in one corner of the room while trying to be professional in the other."

Stevie Nicks wrote the song in early 1976 at Record Plant studio in Sausalito, California. "One day when I wasn't required in the main studio," remembers Nicks to Blender magazine, "I took a Fender Rhodes piano and went into another studio that was said to belong to Sly Stone, of Sly and the Family Stone. It was a black-and-red room, with a sunken pit in the middle where there was a piano, and a big black-velvet bed with Victorian drapes."

"I sat down on the bed with my keyboard in front of me," continues Nicks. "I found a drum pattern, switched my little cassette player on and wrote 'Dreams' in about 10 minutes. Right away I liked the fact that I was doing something with a dance beat, because that made it a little unusual for me."

When Nicks played the song to the rest of the group, "They weren't nuts about it. But I said 'Please! Please record this song, at least try it.' Because the way I play things sometimes... you really have to listen." The band recorded it the following day. Only a basic track was recorded at Sausalito, with Nicks playing the Rhodes piano and singing. Recording assistant Cris Morris remembers how "all (they) kept was the drum track and live vocal from Stevie – the guitars and bass were added later in Los Angeles." Christine McVie described the song as having "just three chords and one note in the left hand" and "boring" when Nicks played a rough version on the piano. McVie changed her mind after Buckingham "fashioned three sections out of identical chords, making each section sound completely different. He created the impression that there's a thread running through the whole thing."

Producer Ken Caillat made an eight bar drum loop of Fleetwood's drumming to create "deep hypnotic effect". Caillat said of the loop that "It’s funny, but when people talk about the classic rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie and they point to this one song, I’m always amused that they’re talking about a drum loop." The electric guitars were sent through four different signals: "a direct signal, a miked signal, a signal running from the output of the amp head, and another direct signal from a volume pedal". These signals were then panned in stereo, which in producer Richard Dashut's estimation, allowed for the guitars to move across the left and right channels "in a very majestic way".

For the song's lead vocals, Caillat assembled a series of eight microphones organized and asked Nicks to sing into each one of them to decide which one she preferred. Nicks ultimately selected a Sennheiser 441 microphone, which according to Caillat was a relatively inexpensive microphone. "When she got to [that] one particular mic and sang into it, she said, "Oh my god, I love this mic! It sounds great!", and my job was done." Caillat placed a windscreen a half-inch away from the microphone and asked Nicks to sing against it so that the lower frequencies of her voice would be captured.

The band decided that the pre-chorus needed more instrumentation, so Fleetwood added some tom-tom accents starting at the song's 48 second mark. Christine McVie originally played sparse whole notes on a piano during this section, but this was deemed unsuitable, so Dashut suggested the addition of a vibraphone instead, which was also played by McVie. Delay was applied to each vibraphone hit so that each note would repeat. For the backing vocals, Buckingham, McVie, and Nicks convened around a piano, with the former playing triads on the instrument to find the optimal harmonic blend. The three singers recorded their vocal harmonies and later doubled their parts. Fleetwood wanted to overdub some congas during the song's chorus, but the instrument was not readily available, so he waited until the next day to record them.

In the United States, "Dreams" reached the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 18 June 1977, and held it for one week. On the Adult Contemporary chart, "Dreams" was Fleetwood Mac's highest-charting single during the 1970s where it reached number 11. In the UK Singles Chart, "Dreams" went to number 24, staying in the top 40 for eight weeks.

Since its initial release, "Dreams" has re-entered the charts on various occasions. It picked up two additional weeks on the UK charts in 2011 following the airing of the Glee "Rumours" episode. In 2018, "Dreams" returned to the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart at number 14, re-popularized by a viral tweet. The song also returned to the New Zealand charts for one week in 2019 at number 40. The song then re-entered the New Zealand charts on 5 October 2020 at number 28, and has since spent 71 consecutive weeks in the top 40, whilst also reaching a new peak of 3 consecutive weeks at number 6. The same year, it also entered the Irish charts for the first time.

In October 2020, the song reached number one on the Billboard Rock Digital Song Sales chart as a result of a viral TikTok video of Nathan Apodaca lip syncing to the song while skateboarding down a highway in Idaho Falls, Idaho drinking Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice. Following the popularity of the video, "Dreams" also placed among the Top 50 most-streamed songs on Spotify and Apple Music in the US, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, re-entering the ARIA in Australia (where it reached a new peak) and the UK Official Charts. "Dreams" also re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 21 on 17 October 2020, giving the band its highest placement on the Hot 100 since 20 February 1988, when "Everywhere" charted at number 17. “Dreams" then rose to number 12 the following week.