Dream Songs Top Ten: An American Dream (#9)

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Yesterday was a lame lunch at the VA cafeteria. I felt like I was back in boot camp: dull food, and “you have 20 minutes, and 20 minutes only, in which to eat your meal.” Back to normal today, and back to another song with “dream” in the title. Gee, haven’t I used this one before...... #9: An American Dream - Dirt Band Why, yes I have. And I’ll use it again, in the “songs with ‘an’ in the title” countdown. Some bands just know HOW to stage a comeback. Pickin’s had been slim for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in the years following the legendary Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. So they took the “Nitty Gritty” out of their name and got down to the nitty gritty. Helped by Linda Ronstadt on backing vocals, they took a Jimmy Buffett-sounding Rodney Crowell tune (Buffett once said he wished he’d written Crowell’s “Stars on the Water,” which Buffett later covered) about dreaming about the vacation that can’t be and roared back into popularity. Everyone won with this great tune: Crowell scored one of his first major hits as a songwriter on his way to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dirt Band came back to prominence, and we all got to hear a great song. An American Dream Written by Rodney Crowell Recorded by The Dirt Band From An American Dream, 1979 Augusta, Georgia is just no place to be: