To me, dreaming seems very much like the brain making clumsy, earnest art in real time: begin with a grounding in reality, throw in some flights of fancy, and land somewhere unexpected. Except, sometimes, you keep landing at the same place over and over, which then becomes its own kind of mystery. Back here again? Why?
At some point in November of 2021, I dreamed that I was hanging out in the living room of a giant reality-show-style house with a bunch of other songwriters, including real-life friend and collaborator Monty Harper. In the particular “scene” that I recalled upon waking, Monty was talking about how he would approach the assignment of writing a marine conservation song.
“You can’t just reference a bunch of facts about the water getting warmer and more acidic,” he was saying. “You have to be provocative, or at least take the listener by surprise somewhat. Like this…” And he improvised the following hypothetical song chorus:
l thought of this again last week after awakening from another songwriting-related dream. In that one, I was listening to a podcast looking back on the life of an obscure songwriter who was currently near death. The podcast included an excerpt of the songwriter’s supposedly best-known song, “Cherries are Perfect”:
Upon waking, I found myself rather delighted by these little song fragments that my subconscious had apparently composed on the spot, as if answering a ChatGPT prompt (“write a 1960s folk song … about cherries”). They felt like little windows into an alternate universe in which I am an environmental songwriter.
A small part of me is tempted to further explore that alternate universe. I could try to finish these songs! But mostly I’m content with the glimpses that I’ve already gotten.
My Track Record 
Leave a comment