Can a song wait three years for the world to hear it? Episode 5 of Coverist tells the story of Aerosmith's "Dream On", written by a teenager long before he had a band, a record deal or an audience.
A boy under his father's piano
Steven Tyler grew up the son of a classical pianist, lying under the piano as a child while the music rained down on him. Years later, at his family's summer lodge on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire, he found the melody of "Dream On" on an old organ. In his words, the song almost wrote itself.
Boston, no money and a suitcase of cash
Aerosmith formed in Boston in 1970: five young men sharing a cramped apartment and rehearsing all day. When they recorded their debut in 1972, Tyler needed a keyboard he couldn't afford, and the money came from a suitcase of cash he found outside their apartment. The two guitars took over the parts of a pianist's two hands, and Tyler, still unsure of his own voice, only let it break through in the song's final climax.
Flop in 1973, comeback in 1976
The single stalled at number 59 on the Billboard chart in 1973 and was a hit only in Boston. Re-released in 1976, it climbed to number 6, the band's first top-ten single. A song about holding on to your dreams had to do exactly that.
The mirror and the passing of time
On the surface "Dream On" sounds like a motivational anthem, but at its core it's about time: a narrator watching his face age in the mirror and answering with a dream. In the episode we read the lyrics line by line.
Covers of Dream On
"Dream On" is one of the most covered songs in American rock. In this episode we play and compare:
- Ronnie James Dio & Yngwie Malmsteen
- Postmodern Jukebox feat. Morgan James
- Blacktop Mojo
- Robyn Adele Anderson
- First to Eleven & Ten Second Songs
- Boyce Avenue
- Anastacia
- Boris Harizanov & Stephen Cooper (Epic Version)
- Sing for the Moment (Eminem)