Follow That Dream

This is a ghost story.

A ghost story, and a cautionary tale. But it started out as a musical comedy.

In 1962, Elvis Presley was already an established movie star. He was a prolific one, too: he starred in no less than three films that year.

First out of the gate was Follow That Dream, hyped by the studio as Elvis’ “funniest, happiest, dreamiest motion picture!”

Elvis recorded six songs for the movie, four of which were released on a soundtrack EP, including the film’s title track, a bouncy rockabilly confection that peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

(Little known but true story: during the filming of Follow That Dream, a crew member named Earl Jernigan brought his ten-year-old nephew to the set to meet The King. The boy had little interest in rock and roll, but he loved movies and jumped at chance to see one being made. Elvis noticed the young set visitor and spent a few minutes talking to him, igniting a new passion  in the boy. From that day forward, little Tom Petty vowed to be a rock and roll star when he grew up.)

“Follow That Dream” (the original version) is sun-drenched and care-free, a paean to persistence and a prayer for companionship along the way. The song’s intro and outro set the tone: Keep a-moving, move along!

And of course, that’s exactly what Elvis did–along with American pop culture. The Beatles arrived in America two years after Follow That Dream, and by the late 1960s, Elvis’ popularity started to decline. A comeback television special re-established him, but his body couldn’t meet the demands his touring schedule placed on it.

He began using and then abusing prescription drugs to help him perform, and he took additional ones to help him sleep. His mental health began to decline along with his physical health, but his finances, his self-image, and his sense of duty to his fans and management kept him moving, moving along.

He was trapped on a treadmill until he finally collapsed on it and died in 1977.

Elvis’ death had a profound effect on Bruce Springsteen, whose star was just starting to rise at the moment Presley’s went out.

Bruce was in attendance at one of Elvis’ very last shows, at the Philadelphia Spectrum during Memorial Day weekend of 1977. Although the show wasn’t marked, interrupted, or cut short by the spells of disorientation and incoherence that would shortly follow, Bruce later recalled it as “not a very good night.”

Elvis’ parting words to the Philly crowd were reassuring, however: “Contrary to what you may have read or heard, I am in good health.”

Nursing his disappointment after the show, Springsteen wrote a song he hoped would help usher in new glory days for Presley. He sent the song, called “Fire,” to Presley’s management, but Elvis died before it arrived.

Presley’s death shook Springsteen, who recognized it for the warning it posed for rock stars on their way up.  Although he remained essentially silent about his idol during the following year’s Darkness on the Edge of Town Tour, by the time he was touring in support of The River, he was sensing superstardom on the horizon, and as he was wont to do, he expressed his misgivings in song.

Two songs, actually, both debuting on tour in the spring of 1981. The two songs shared something else in common, too: they were both homages to early rock and roll classics. We’ll look at “Johnny Bye Bye” later in this book; first, let’s focus on Bruce’s adaptation of Elvis’ “Follow That Dream.”

Bruce debuted the song as a show opener(!), undoubtedly surprising his French fans that night. Even if they were familiar with the original, Bruce’s version was positively funereal and ghostly. Unlike Presley’s happy-go-lucky original, Springsteen’s version has the cadence of a pallbearer’s march.

Bruce changed more than the arrangement–he also heavily altered the lyrics, significantly adding to the weight for the song.

Elvis gave advice to weary travelers: “When your heart gets restless, time to move along. When your heart gets weary, time to sing a song.”

Bruce, by contrast, offers a diagnosis for the broken-hearted and exhausted: “If your heart is restless from waiting so long, if you’re tired and weary and you can’t go on.”

Bruce also ups the stakes of Elvis’ search for “someone to look for my dream with me,” instead aching for “a love I can trust.”

While the central anchor of “Follow that dream wherever it may lead” may be intact, Bruce delivers it as a somber duty and compulsion rather than an adventure or calling.

Springsteen also adds an entirely new verse:

Now every man has the right to live
The right to a chance to give what he has to give
The right to fight for the things he believes
For things that come to him in dreams

Those last words in that last line–in dreams–are another noteworthy Springsteen addition to the song. a quote of sorts from Roy Orbison’s In Dreams that threads through the song, lending it an otherworldly ambience.

The entire effect is on of eulogy or even exorcism: Bruce performs the song as if momentarily possessed by the spirit of Elvis.

Perhaps he was.

When Bruce recorded the song in his home studio a year and a half later, he’d re-arranged it again. The studio version, which remained unreleased for more than four decades, is much more uptempo and upbeat than his River Tour version.

The lyrical changes persisted, however, resulting in a recording where the arrangement belies the message–a common hallmark of Bruce’s early 1980s recordings.

While fans would have to wait until 2025 to hear the official studio recording, Bruce continued performing “Follow That Dream” in concert throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, his peak stardom years.

“Follow That Dream” has been much rarer in Springsteen’s 21st century setlists, however, appearing only a half-dozen times to date. Perhaps its because by then Bruce knew he had heeded The King’s warning and escaped his fate. If The King had been haunting The Boss, the former’s spirit had been finally laid to rest.

“Follow That Dream” made its last appearance to date at the tail end of the reprised River Tour, a fitting bookend to the song’s earliest appearances.

Follow That Dream
Recorded: January 30, 1983
Released: L.A. Garage Sessions ’83 (2025)
First performed: April 19, 1981 (Paris, France)
Last performed: February 16, 2017 (Brisbane, Australia)

© January 18, 2026