Songfacts®:

• This song is about a guy with big dreams who is incapable of acting on them, so they never come true. As was custom with Supertramp, it was credited to their founding members Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, who wrote separately but shared composer credits. "Dreamer" was written by Hodgson, who also sang lead.
  
  When Songfacts asked Roger in 2012 if he was a dreamer, he replied: "I am, and I definitely was even more back then. I was a teenager, I had many dreams. And I feel very blessed that a lot of them came true. But that song flew out of me one day. We had just bought our first Wurlitzer piano, and it was the first time I'd been alone with a Wurlitzer piano back down in my mother's house. I set it up and I was so excited that that song just flew out of me."
• The original demo for this song had the band banging cardboard boxes and electric fires and anything that clanged. Though there are some drums in the final mix, Supertramp wanted to duplicate the tempo of their demo, so there are also some cardboard boxes being struck somewhere in the mix.
• After Roger Hodgson left Supertramp in 1983, the band didn't perform "Dreamer" live until their 2010 tour, where it was part of a three-song encore of cuts from Crime of the Century. Saxophonist John Helliwell explained in a 1988 interview.
  
  "It became a big number on stage. I used to frolic around and stand on the piano and try to make Roger laugh while he was singing it. We don't do that anymore, 'cause it was so much Roger that we really couldn't do another version of that."
• Roger Hodgson came up with this song at his mother's house, which is where he recorded the demo, using boxes and various household items for percussion. It wasn't until about five years later that he recorded the song with Supertramp, using that demo as a guide. They couldn't duplicate the demo exactly, but they came as close as they could.
• This was featured in the 2001 film The Parole Officer.
• "Dreamer" was used in a commercial for Xfinity that debuted on Thanksgiving 2020 during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In the spot, Steve Carell plays Santa Claus, who live everyone else is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Looking for a new approach, he decides that togetherness is more important than toys.
• Producer Ken Scott insisted that the sound effects for Crime of the Century, like the wine glass played by John Helliwell on "Dreamer," should be real. Old Grey Whistle Test footage from 1974 shows him doing it live.