Dream Baby Dream

Rev and Vega wrote it, and the single, with "Radiation" on the B-side, runs 3:17 on the 7-inch and 6:19 on the 12-inch. Wikipedia gives the UK 7-inch as WIP 6543 on Island, a French release in 1981 on Celluloid and ZE, and a recording at Right Track in New York with Ocasek producing and Jay Burnett engineering; Trouser Press lists a 12-inch dated 1980 from the same Ocasek sessions as the second album, and we found no independent confirmation of the studio. A version was performed on NBC's The Midnight Special in 1978. We found no statement from Vega or Rev about its meaning; Rev said he did not know why Springsteen liked it, only that he had covered it a bunch in concert.

Springsteen released a live version in 2008 as the first of the Alan Vega 70th Birthday EP series on Blast First Petite and a studio version (5:03) on High Hopes (2014). Neneh Cherry and The Thing covered it on The Cherry Thing (2012), Arcade Fire with David Byrne played it as an encore in Brooklyn in August 2014, and Pearl Jam played it at the Pemberton Music Festival on July 16, 2016. Savages covered it live in the 2014 film Electric Slide. Sounds ranked it 76th of the 100 best singles in 1985, Uncut 42nd among post-punk singles in 2001, and Pitchfork 37th among the best songs of the 1970s in 2016. Adam Curtis used it in HyperNormalisation (2016), and it is in American Honey (2016) and the closing credits of Civil War (2024). Our upload is the 2022 Remaster official visualiser.