The song “Dreams” was a #1 hit soon after it was written in 1976, and then again in 2020. This is the story behind the song that was a big hit–twice.

Level: High-Beginning and Up

A Hit Song–Twice

In 1976, Stevie Nicks was a singer in the popular band Fleetwood Mac. She was in love with the band’s guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, and he was in love with her. For eight years, they had been a couple. But they weren’t getting along, and they knew they had to break up. It was a difficult decision because both of them wanted to stay in the band. “If we break up,” Stevie thought, “we will still be together on stage. We will have to pretend that everything is OK. But everything will not be OK.” Still, she knew they could not stay together as a couple.

Stevie wrote a goodbye song to Lindsey. “You say you want your freedom,” she wrote in the song. “Well, who am I to keep you down?” She called the song “Dreams,” and it became a #1 hit for the band. But the story doesn’t end there.

In 2020, the song “Dreams” was a big hit for the second time—in September, it was the #1 downloaded song in the U.S. It became popular again because of Nathan Apodaca and a video he posted on TikTok.

Nathan is 37 years old and works at a warehouse in Idaho. One morning Nathan’s car broke down on his way to work, about two miles from the warehouse. Nathan didn’t want to be late, so he grabbed his skateboard, which he keeps in his car, and got on the skateboard. The road to the warehouse was all downhill, so the skateboard was the fastest way to get to work.

While he rode the skateboard, Nathan drank cranberry juice from a big bottle and sang along with Stevie Nicks’s song “Dreams.” He also filmed himself. Nathan’s video went viral, with tens of millions of views. But that’s still not the end of the story.

Many people, some of them famous, made videos like Nathan’s. In the videos, people were riding skateboards, singing along with the song ”Dreams,” and drinking cranberry juice from a big bottle. That, of course, was good publicity for the company that makes the cranberry juice. The company surprised Nathan with a gift—a brand-new, cranberry-red truck. The back of the truck was filled with bottles of cranberry juice.

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Copyright © 2020 Sandra Heyer. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.