Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs — Mac at No. 9
 

So Rolling Stone just published its annual clickbait article of the Top 500 Songs of All Time.

“Dreams” climbed higher than it’s ever done — number 9.

All these Buckingham and Nicks feud articles and Buckingham album reviews and Nicks appreciation pieces online and in print and now this? Is someone engineering all this disparate coverage? I was following them in 1977 and quite frankly I don’t think they had anywhere near this much press that year, all in the space of a few weeks.

i saw a really good thread on twitter, of this guy analyzing different performers and how their songs have changed on the list. obviously the list should not be called "greatest songs" if it goes for the most popular but that's where we are lol. like really? where's the Chain? none of Christine songs?

lmao ok didn't care about the Rolling Stones list but "Dreams" getting the meme bump all the way to number 9 is hilarious. just shameless. https://t.co/JbNuXHSAKw

— fka ☕️ (@coopercooperco) September 15, 2021

There was no internet then .You pretty much had to wait around for the next issue of Rolling Stone in the random notes section. They did also have a People magazine cover that year .

Exactly. The world has changed so much since 1977. Today is a 24/7 news cycle and endless social media and internet. I remember going to concerts in the 80s and never knowing the setlists beforehand. Every song was a surprise. Now you know the setlist immediately and can watch concerts on youtube. Back then you had to wait till 6pm to watch or hear any news LOL.

Dreams is a good song (although I turn it off when its on the radio because I've heard it so much) but Go Your Own Way is a better song ;)

Go Your Own Way is a FAR more inventive song than Dreams(the same could be said of Tusk). Because both exist outside of any traditional song structure. Mick's drumming during the verses, and the way the acoustic guitar is what really holds the timing of the song together, makes it one of a kind.

Now here comes $tevie people telling us how Dreams was #1... big deal. I hear GYOW far more often on the radio than Dreams.

Laughable. I wouldn’t even put Dreams as high as my #9 Fleetwood Mac song let alone all songs. Even of just Stevie’s contributions, GDW, Rhiannon, and Gypsy are better IMO.

I *LOVE* Dreams....always have, always will.

But the magic of it is in that production. When you listen to earlier rough versions it's pretty meh. Her vocal is great but the song is flat, like most of her songs until LB adds in lifts with instrumentation and backing vocals. John absolutely anchors the song, with Mick, as he does on all her stuff on the first 3 albums. The guitar layers and all of Chris's gorgeous keyboards/synthesizer parts, and then all the backing vocals just make it sooooo lush and luscious and hypnotic. It's this band at its cohesive best.

Her solo versions have never, ever come close. Even the Mac live versions don't do it full justice.

But that Rumours version......:nod:

You are so right. The magic of dreams is the magical production. The elements of ripping off the Carpenters with double vocals, John's heartbeat bass, and Chris's magical 70's keyboard playing with Lindsey's incredible guitar make it the song that it is. The lyrics are great and you can hear the cold Stevie said she had when she recorded it. Strangely, it adds to the mood of the song.
Long story short, the arrangement and production of Dreams is what makes it a great song.

My 3 favorite songs are:
1. True Faith by New Order
2. I Feel Love by Donna Summer
3. Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac

Dreams is the quintessential band song- it works because all 5 showed up with their A-Game for the song and it deserved it's number one status. same can be said though for the whole Rumours album. It always has been just meh live though, they always seemed to want to get it over with. Stevie also has written better songs with better effect, Gypsy being the best example of this.

I agree. Its almost impossible to pull off the magic of Dreams live. GYOW on the other hand kills live every time.
The most annoying thing about Dreams is that its always the second song in Fleetwood Mac's set and Stevie's set. Its so predictable and boring and glad she finally dropped it on her last leg of the 24K Gold Tour

Even though it's a poll of artists, musicians, producers, critics and journalists, it is just that. A poll. In a few years another poll will show different results. I don't find those lists that important, but glad to find several of my favorite songs.

“Dreams” is the best lyric Nicks ever wrote. She has never topped it lyrically. Even her other good songs have moments of cringe in them, but not this one. It’s so easily what Stevie always had trouble maintaining in her songwriting: sophisticated and believable and free of pretentiousness.

The reiterative “dreams of loneliness” is as rich as anything in a contemporary poetry book.

I believe Christine has said as much. Something to the effect that when Stevie brought it too them it was 3 notes and Lindsey is the one (Christine's words IIRC) that crafted it into what we hear today

She also said she sang it beautifully. And she did. But what wasn't Stevie singing beautifully back then.

Dreams is one of my favorite Stevie Mac songs. I could literally listen to that song over and over and not get sick of it. Fleetwood Mac at its' finest.

#9 song(I'm guessing rock/pop songs of all time?). I don't know about that.

If anything Dreams got a bump because of the recent tik tok craze over it.

I am probably the last person on Earth to have noticed this, but I wager that Stevie had Poe's The Telltale Heart in mind (consciously or unconsciously) when she wrote this line. It fits with her trend of referencing Poe and other authors in other songs. I just had never before drawn the connection in the case of Dreams.

I can see that

Stevie singing Dreams from 1977-2019. 42 years in 4 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyLcIyeu8U

Yes, could be. Isn’t that cool? What’s even more cool to me is the clever way that the same line replicates the kick drum across the bar, which is both groovily hypnotic and sound-sense resonant. Each syllable falls on the beat — like a guess what? A heartbeat!

• heart (kick)
• beat (kick)
• drives (kick)
• you (kick)

That’s an entire bar that drills in its meaning in your brain. “Mad” in the bar immediately following is sung on a syncopated (off) rhythm, which keeps everything from sounding too robotic and unnatural. We don’t want to ignore the fact that there’s a real woman singing, feeling real desires. The best way in any art to keep something genuine and fresh is to add variation. “Dreams” has a lot of sophisticated, subtle tricks like that. Mick hits the hi-hat on the second syllable of “thun-der,” is another example that gives you a little crash of thunder at exactly the right moment. You don’t necessarily have to be fully aware of these subtleties; they work their way in through the back door after repeated listenings. It’s exactly what they mean when they say that some Fleetwood Mac songs hold up on repetition. You pick up more the second, third, and fourth time. That’s the true magic of Fleetwood’s orchestration: the arrangement and dynamics of all the individual tracks reward hearing the same song over and over. That could be why Rumours keeps selling.

Aretha’s death helped Respect.

Man, I am not a Beatles fan, but I just saw the picture of Paul and Ringo kissing through their masks and I cried.

They were also with Olivia Harrison.

My heart really is broken. I will never get over it. Everything that happens in music only makes me think of FM. I listen to a podcast examining whether Brian Jones was murdered and I think of FM:laugh:.

Loved seeing Dreams this high. Amazing song. Then I saw Nirvana higher and vomited. I am very surprised that Rhiannon did not make this list.

A good analysis, David.
Deserving of a truckload of Ocean Spray.

I have a similar appreciation of Sara, with the hypnotic rhythm line as the heartbeat in question.