Why Dan Hartman’s Biggest Hit From 1984 Had To Deal With Some Mistaken Identity

Most people who follow 80s music now know that Dan Hartman was responsible for the 1984 hit single “I Can Dream About You”. But at the time, folks dealt with serious confusion about the whole affair.

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The song appeared in a film with an actor mouthing the words. And a different voice than Hartman’s was singing them. You can understand the identity crisis.

A “Dream” Gig

Dan Hartman nabbed his first big break in the music industry in the early 70s. He sent some songs to rock bandleader Edgar Winter. Soon, he was a part of The Edgar Winter Band. Hartman even wrote the band’s hit 1972 single “Free Ride”. By the middle of the decade, he had embarked on a solo career.

He enjoyed sporadic success in that vein. Hartman did hit the Top 40 in 1978 with the disco-flavored “Instant Replay”. He also kept writing for other artists. At one point, he penned a blue-eyed soul track called “I Can Dream About You”. He unsuccessfully pitched that song to Hall & Oates.

Maybe it was for the best that Hartman held onto it. While he was prepping an album for 1984, Jimmy Iovine, the producer of that LP, asked Hartman if he would donate a song for the movie Streets Of Fire. Hartman gave up “I Can Dream About You” for that purpose.

Wait, Who Sang That?

Hartman understood going into the process that the song was going to be performed in the film by a Temptations-like soul group. But he wisely insisted in his contract that it would be his voice used in the recording to be found on the album of the film.

That didn’t stop people from being confused by the whole scenario. In the film, the lead vocals were mouthed by an actor named Stoney Jackson, who played the lead singer of the fictional group The Sorels. Meanwhile, a studio singer named Winston Ford provided the actual vocals that are heard in the film.

Got all that? The bottom line is that it was Dan Hartman’s voice that people heard booming out of radios in the summer of 1984. People who saw the film might have been confused by it all. But the end result was a No. 6 single, the biggest hit of Hartman’s career.

Behind the Lyrics of “I Can Dream About You”

After the tone is set with a herky-jerky but melodic open, Dan Hartman gives us the evocative opening lines of “I Can Dream About You”: “No more timing/Each tear that falls from eyes.” In other words, he’s no longer going to wallow about missing his girl, not when he can conjure her up in his reveries. “I can dream about you,” he sings in the refrain. “If I can’t hold you tonight.”

Later, Hartman suggests that his narrator might not be on the same plane, literally and figuratively, as the object of his affections. He bemoans, “Down here below where the street sees me lonely for you.” But he promises later that he’ll be, “Climbing up from/The pain in my heart ‘cause it’s you that I need.”

To add to the confusion surrounding this song, there were two videos made, one without Hartman in it and one with him. You might not have been sure who was behind “I Can Dream About You” when you heard it in 1984. But you probably grooved to its easygoing catchiness anyway.

(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)