Author(s): Jeff Apter

Music

Don't Dream It's Over is the first biography to focus exclusively on Neil Finn, the man who wrote the timeless hits of Split Enz and Crowded House.

In February 1980, 21-year-old Neil Mullane Finn wrote 'I Got You', which became the signature song, and the biggest hit, for the Kiwi band Split Enz, co-founded by Neil's big brother Tim several years earlier.

Over the next five decades, Neil not only nurtured one of the finest heads of hair in music, but crafted hit after hit-'Don't Dream It's Over', 'Better Be Home Soon', 'One Step Ahead', 'Into Temptation' and more-for Split Enz, for his own chart-topping band Crowded House, and as a solo act.

In 2018, he joined international superstars Fleetwood Mac, who added 'Don't Dream It's Over' to their sets. Neil is the most successful singer-songwriter of his generation from this end of the planet-and probably the most respected.

Neil has endured his share of challenges. There was massive conflict with his older brother, especially when Tim was briefly invited to join Crowded House in 1990; the tragic death, by suicide, of close friend and Crowded House bandmate Paul Hester; and his difficult early days in England with Split Enz, surviving, but only just, on the dole.

Stir in his devout Catholic upbringing, a marriage to wife Sharon that has somehow lasted more than 40 years-a miracle in the world of pop music-and the efforts of his sons, Liam and Elroy, to also pursue a career in music, and the result is one of the most inspiring musical sagas of recent times.