Song of the Day-These Dreams

"These Dreams" is a key song in the career of the rock band Heart. Like a lot of "AOR" bands who started out in the 70's, Heart turned to outside songwriters when their commercial fortunes foundered. In this case, it was songwriter Martin Page ("We Built This City" "King Of Wishful Thinking"). The strategy worked commercially. Bolstered by an extremely popular MTV video "These Dreams" hit number one Billboard Pop and AC, the first of two times Heart would top the charts. It was also by guitarist sung by Nancy Wilson, not usual lead singer Ann Wilson, demonstrating a nice touch with a power ballad. The story goes that Nancy had a cold that day giving the song a bit of a "raspy" feel that producers would ask her to re-create telling her "Why don't you just get another cold?"

Of course, chart-topping success was not without it's pitfalls. Heart abandoned the sound that had won them their big mid 70's success, that of a kind of folkier, female Led Zeppelin, in favor of a more commercially oriented, mainstream rock sound. Heart would have more success after "These Dreams" but even this more commercially-oriented sound would, in time, pay diminishing returns.

After a long hiatus, Heart released Red Velvet Car in 2010 and, no surprise, it was a return to the sound that made Heart famous early in their career. "These Dreams," the song and video, is very much an artifact of the mid-80's with the classic "Power Ballad" production sheen. It is, nonetheless, a worthy tune!