Listen to The Smashing Pumpkins cover Blondie song ‘Dreaming’ from back in 1996
New York rock band Blondie rose to acclaim amidst the new wave post-punk scene of the early 1970s, but by 1978, they were incorporating pop and disco into their own sound. Blondie’s third album, Parallel Lines, took them further in this direction, and international popularity beckoned. The record, arguably their best ever, famously included one of their biggest hits, ‘Heart of Glass’.
Running with their newfound widespread success, Blondie released their next album just a year later. The 1979 record Eat To The Beat spawned two more massive hits for the band – ‘Atomic’ and ‘Dreaming’. The record combined pop and new wave influences, resulting in a new danceable, but innovative form of pop music. ‘Dreaming’, in particular, is an example of just how well Blondie did pop. The song became the opening track on the record and the lead single ahead of its release.
A euphoric track inspired by the ABBA hit ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Dreaming’ has since become one of the band’s most celebrated songs. Over a familiarly melodic guitar riff, playful synths, and a pulsing drumline, vocalist Debbie Harry’s lyrics devolve further into a dream world, questioning, “Pleasure’s real, or is it fantasy?” The single release was accompanied by a music video which sees the band performing the track live – a bleach-blonde Harry effortlessly commands the audience.
Guitarist Chris Stein spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the track’s pop influences, sharing, “‘Dreaming’ is pretty much a copy of ‘Dancing Queen.’ I don’t know if that was where we started, or if it ended just happening to sound like that.”
Harry also chipped in to explain their process of writing: “Sometimes Chris will come up with a track or a feel and pass it on to me, and he’ll say, ‘I was thinking ‘Dreaming/Dreaming is free’’, and then I’ll fill it out with a storyline or some more phrases. A lot of times it’s the rhythm track that suggests what the lyric is going to be. I like working like that.”
In 1996, Chicago alternative rock outfit The Smashing Pumpkins removed all pop sensibilities from ‘Dreaming’ with their interpretation of the track. The cover featured on The Aeroplane Flies High, a box set which widened the scope of their singles from the 1996 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The cover is much calmer than the original, almost taking a trip-hop approach with raspy percussion and whirring synths.
In Guitar World, guitarist Billy Corgan shared: “This is a cover of Blondie classic from the late seventies, with D’Arcy handling most of the vocals. We decided to do this with a breezy hippity-hop vibe, with a little Joy Division thrown in for good measure.”
He also explains the band’s issues while recording: “Interestingly enough, this song was plagued with all sorts of technical problems that made mic-ing it a technically nightmare – vocals with electrical noises, drum loops with scratch guitars recorded over them, etc.”
After overcoming their technical problems, The Smashing Pumpkins provided a darker, slower rendition of the pop classic for a new grungy 1990s alternative scene.
Listen to The Smashing Pumpkins cover ‘Dreaming’ below.
