Dreams Never End

Dreams Never End opens Movement, New Order's first album, released by Factory on November 13, 1981 as FACT 50. It runs 3:13 and is credited to the four members. It is an album track, not a single, and it has no chart position of its own. The album was recorded between April 24 and May 4, 1981 at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, with Martin Hannett producing, Chris Nagle engineering and John Leckie and Flood assisting.

The song goes back to the first writing sessions of the summer of 1980 and was played with Truth at the band's first concerts in the United States in September 1980, when they were still a trio. Peter Hook sings it, with Bernard Sumner still settling into the role of main vocalist. A search summary of an interview with Hook, which was not confirmed at its source, has him writing it on a Sunday afternoon in his back bedroom around a bass riff first played on a six-string bass. An earlier version was recorded for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show on January 26, 1981, with Hook on lead vocals, and appears on The Peel Sessions.

On the record

On the album Sumner plays guitars, melodica, synthesizers and programming, Hook plays bass and sings lead on this song and on Doubts Even Here, Gillian Gilbert plays synthesizers, programming and guitars, and Stephen Morris plays drums, synthesizers and programming. No source we found has the band explaining what the lyric is about, so none is offered here.

Uncut's Sharon O'Connell praised the future-positive declaration of the opener, as quoted on Wikipedia. Hook, looking back, said it was good for the first two and a half minutes and then dipped. Lilys are named as a favorite New Order cover in a KCRW list of the best covers of the band, seen only in a search snippet. Live versions from Hurrah's in New York in 1980 and elsewhere are on the 2019 Definitive Edition of Movement; the track-by-track contents were not checked.

The upload is the official audio from the band's own channel; whether it is the original 1981 master or a later remaster is not stated.