Aerosmith – Dream On
About The Song
This was the first single Aerosmith released. Their manager had them share a house and concentrate on writing songs for their first album. Steven Tyler had been working on the song on and off for about six years, writing it in bits and pieces. He was able to complete it with the help of the rest of the band. A breakthrough came when Tyler bought an RMI keyboard with money he found in a suitcase outside of where the band was staying. The “suitcase incident” became part of Aerosmith lore, as Tyler didn’t tell his bandmates that he took the money, and when gangsters came looking for it, he continued to play dumb.
Regarding the meaning of this song, Tyler explained: “It’s about the hunger to be somebody: Dream until your dreams come true.” He added, “This song sums up the s–t you put up with when you’re in a new band. Most of the critics panned our first album, and said we were ripping off the Stones. That’s a good barometer of my anger at the press, which I still have. ‘Dream On’ came of me playing the piano when I was about 17 or 18, and I didn’t know anything about writing a song. It was just this little sonnet that I started playing one day. I never thought that it would end up being a real song.”
This was the song that saved Aerosmith from being dropped by their label. Aerosmith was the band’s first album, and it sold poorly, mainly because their record company didn’t promote it – Columbia records was focused on Bruce Springsteen’s first album (released just a week earlier) at the time. Aerosmith was in danger of being dropped, but their management convinced Columbia to release “Dream On” as a single, and it showed promise, reaching #59 in the US. This single version was a different, more radio-friendly edit than the album version of the song, and it did well in the Boston area, especially on the powerhouse AM station WRKO. Columbia kept the band, and they became one of their biggest acts.
