Thunder only happens when it’s raining, but viral memes happen all the time ― though they usually don’t bring a 41-year-old song back up to the top of the music charts.
According to Billboard, Fleetwood Mac’s song “Dreams” spiked at No. 14 this week on the Hot Rock Songs chart, apparently because of the song’s appearance in a meme on Twitter.
The song’s revival seems to have started with Twitter user @bottledfleet, who tweeted a video clip and caption on March 22. The text reads, “Fleetwood Mac’s music is so boring, you can’t even dance to it,” followed by, “Me, an intellectual:” The accompanying video is a 38-second clip of a marching band’s dance team passionately dancing and pelvic thrusting to “Dreams.”
As of Wednesday, the tweet had more than 130,000 retweets and more than 320,000 likes.
Stevie Nicks told Rolling Stone last yearthat she wrote the now-iconic single “in about 10 minutes.” The song, which appeared on the band’s “Rumours” album, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1977.
Billboard notes that in addition to climbing the charts this week, “Dreams” saw a 36 percent surge in download sales between March 23 and 29 ― the week immediately after the tweet went out.
Memes are reviving classic hits, y’all. What a time to be alive.
“Dreams” isn’t even the first song off of “Rumours” to see a recent resurgence. In May, “The Chain” landed at number 7 on the Hot Rock Songs chart because it was included on the “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” soundtrack.
Good music never dies, friends.