Can you tell that this is another song that came to me in a dream? Not very creative titling, to be sure, but in this case, the dreaming was central to the dream, if that makes any sense. As is usual for my captured ‘chansons de rêve’ the whole first verse was formed by mysterious unconscious forces, including the lyrics, which were themselves all about the process of dreaming (“picturing perfection, barely glimpsed then left behind”). I wrote the next verse in the liminal state between sleep and fully awake (that’s where the magic often happens), still very much in the spirit of the first verse, musing on the nature of dreaming, and the odd sense that you can commune with at least the person you love there.
The challenge with such perfectly formed dream-nuggets that feel like they’ve come from somewhere else is where to take them in the harsh light of day, and I recall this one being difficult to graft a chorus on to. It was a few months before I did, but I vividly remember when it finally popped out of me, strumming an unamplified electric guitar in the quieter backroom of The Railway. As I hit on the winning chord progression (F-C-G-F), the words felt like they were there already, so obvious: “These dreams come true / Through you.” There is a lot of musical imagery, from filling the “air” (a quaint word for song) “with melody” to the call to “sing along and harmonize” and even a reference to “[music of] the spheres.”
The live performance we captured in studio was my favorite of the sessions at Echoplant – Adrian’s brushwork, Eric’s smooth cultured basslines and Derek’s phenomenal washing organ chords perfectly representing the otherworldly feel of the subject matter. The atmosphere also suggested steel guitar to me, which was beautifully realized by Jackson Gardner adding his subtle touches to the chorus and a solo section I’d left free for someone to fill.