"Dreams" is a song by Irish rock band the Cranberries. It was released in 1992 as the band's debut single, later appearing on the studio album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?. An early 1990 version was released in Ireland only in the summer of that year. It reached the Top 15 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay and the top 30 on the UK charts in early 1994.
The backing vocals on the song are sung by Mike Mahoney, ex-boyfriend of Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan. This hit was also a main feature of the Cranberries in the 1994 Woodstock Revival Festival.
In 2017, the song was released as an acoustic, stripped down version on the band's Something Else album.
There are three versions of the video. The first version of the music video features Dolores O'Riordan donning her original hairstyle that is seen on the Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? album cover. The video revolves around O'Riordan with the other band members flashing up throughout the video while she's sitting on in a chair with a cross as a back or a close up of her face and eyes. The video shows a mirrored image of O'Riordan to show she does the background vocals and towards the end the band members fade in and out constantly in front of O'Riordan.
The second version shows the Cranberries performing the song in a dimly lit aquatic-themed room interspersed with shots of geometric flowers hitting water. This video received high rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1993 before the release of the bands next single, "Linger", and the re-release of "Dreams" worldwide.
The third version, which was most commonly shown in America, shows the Cranberries performing the song in a nightclub. After which, Dolores O'Riordan heads out to a house where grave robbers dressed in black have placed in a very large tree pile. Dolores bathes the tree pile in water and a man is buried under the pile. The water frees him and in the final seconds of the video, the man wakes up.
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