“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams…”
That is the opening of Arthur O'Shaughnessy’s 1873 poem “Ode,” but like many Gen Xers I first heard it from Gene Wilder in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. He quotes those lines to Veruca Salt (great band name!) after she dares question the very existence of snozzberries (apparently also a band name).
I’ve long thought that Wilder’s Wonka was a cartoonish embodiment of this much debated music genre. What are power pop songs if not curious confections lovingly crafted by mad geniuses who are a little out of step with the times?
In my mind, Wonka’s candy making talents are equal to those of legendary songwriters like Ham/Evans of Badfinger, Chilton/Bell of Big Star, Blake/Love/McGinley of Teenage Fanclub, Collingwood/Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, etc. And then there’s Wonka’s outlandish fashion sense which feels hopelessly outdated and utterly timeless all at once (see: early ‘90s Redd Kross or Jellyfish).
He’s also really opinionated and, despite his good intentions, can be pretty mean. Anybody who has engaged in heated power pop debates will understand that combo.
Dreaming is one of power pop’s most persistent themes.
Even when they don’t come true (let’s face it, most power pop dreams don’t!), there is a naive, heart-on-your-sleeve romance to belting out your deepest desires for the world to hear, no matter how juvenile or unrealistic they are. (To wit: The chances that “Stacy’s Mom” would actually fall for a teenage boy were about as likely as Charlie Bucket snatching an everlasting gobstopper for Slugworth without Wonka noticing.)
This is another favorite line from Wilder’s Wonka: “Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.” Next time somebody asks me for my definition of power pop, here’s what I’m going with:
But enough about Willy Wonka since he wasn’t even the inspiration for this latest playlist.
I got the idea from one of my all-time favorite power pop songs (and drum performances), Blondie’s “Dreaming.” I wondered how many other songs in the genre used the word “dream” in the title and got to 40 pretty fast. Some of the tracks are 6% more punk than power pop, or 8% more indie rock, but they all hang together nicely.
You’ll find many classics here including “Dream Police” by Cheap Trick and “Dream All Day” by The Posies. There are also more recent tracks like “Dream About Judy” by The Whiffs, “Apocalypse Dream” by Kate Clover, and “Hold On To The Dream, Dreamer” by Strange Magic, to name a few.
Bram Tchaikovsky‘S “Girl Of My Dreams” is, of course, a perfect fit, but I used it on a previous girl-themed playlist so I’m closing out this introduction with it instead—it’s far too amazing to simply ignore in this context.
Otherwise, as Wonka would say, there are plenty of other “little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.” Enjoy “Dreaming” on Spotify or YouTube.
The song that this great piece (power) popped into my head (and now I can’t get it out) is by ELO. Was it a dream, I thought? Perhaps, as I recalled the lyric “in dreams the world keeps going round and round.”
What Do You Dream Of? by Marshall Crenshaw