songs: A Dream I Had

Written in 2007, while living in a trailer outside of my parent's house, this song was intended to be the opening number to a musical that I never finished.  The stage is set as a single-room apartment in Manhattan, with a lone window beside a single bed.  A piano plays itself in the corner.

The main character suddenly awakes from a slumber and breaks into song, while the images of his remembered dreams pass by the window.  Half-way through, his girlfriend enters with a knock at the door and he greets her, "where have you been, my love?" to which she replies "I went out for a walk in the morning sun..."

The whole project was to be an examination of the self vs. society.  Throughout the storyline, the creative ambitions of an artsy protagonist are pitted against the oppressive structures of a rigid establishment.  The melody introduced in the C section of this song ("They sang 'oh'"), was to represent the ascending, expressive spirit, while another more sinister melody ("The voices of the world") would come to embody the status quo.

Is it worth mentioning that I was smoking a lot of weed during this writing phase?

I just had a dream
Of a modern day city littered with magazines
And they blocked out the light of the sun
As they fell from the heights of a
Skyscraper no one remembered building

Walking in this dream
There were many
Oh so many but I was lonelier than I’ve ever been
There were businessmen down on their knees
While their wives and their daughters
Filed into the streets
I was silently weeping

[c]
So I reached for the sky
With my arms and my pride
I sang, “Hope has come!”
But my words lacked dominion
They drowned in the public’s opinion

Now I’m burning awake
In a bed that I made
‘Neith the darkness of night
Hopeful that someday I’ll leave this behind
These dreams of mine

I just had a dream, another dream
Where our hearts were a form of currency
And we traded our souls for the sun
From that burning desire
There was nowhere to run
And the fire kept burning

So we dove to the sea
Built our ships so thick they’d never sink
But the Sirens still sang from the shore
So we’d pirate their songs
Ever hungry for more
They were slowly starving

[c]

“Where have you been my love?
I just woke up…”
“I went out for a walk in the morning sun…
There were choirs of birds singing beautiful love songs for no one”

“Tell me more…”

They sang oh
Without a doubt in their soul
They sang oh
As if they knew where they’d go

[c]
When I look to your eyes
I feel warm and alive
I know hope has finally come
Oh someday we’ll marry
Then, reckless and daring
We’ll run, we’ll run, we’ll run
And we’ll sing oh
Like we know where we’ve been
We’ll sing oh
Like we know what we’ve seen
Inside of these dreams.

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Copyright 2011, Simplify Music.