Dreams

Dolores O'Riordan wrote "Dreams" about her first love while she was living in Ireland, explaining that it was about feeling really in love for the first time. The Irish rock band the Cranberries recorded a demo version of the song in 1990, releasing it that summer in Ireland only under their original band name, the Cranberry Saw Us. A demo tape pairing the song with "Linger" later helped generate excitement for the group.

Island Records issued "Dreams" in October 1992 as the band's debut single, and it later appeared on the 1993 album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? The song reached the top 50 of the US Billboard Hot 100 and the top 30 of the UK Singles Chart. At the end of the recording, the backing vocals are sung by Mike Mahoney, the ex-boyfriend of O'Riordan. In 2017, an acoustic, stripped-down version of the song appeared on the band's Something Else album.

Three music videos were made to promote the single, directed by John Maybury, Peter Scammell and Nico Soultanakis, each the only video that director made for the band. Maybury's version shows O'Riordan seated in a chair with a cross as a back, with a mirrored image used to show her singing the background vocals. Scammell's version, set in a dimly lit aquatic-themed room, received high rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1993. The third, most commonly shown in America and Ireland, ends with a man freed from beneath a wood pile after O'Riordan bathes it in water.