Songwriter's Corner|

Will Baumgartner (from his Facebook page)

Interesting question from Will Baumgartner on Facebook, 2/27/18: New songs often come to me in my dreams. How many others, I wonder, experience this?

Kane Hollins I heard music – Grismanesque melody – as I was dreaming I was being arrested. They had the dogs and I thought I could get away running through the Acequia. Then I wondered if the dogs knew what I had done was wrong. The next morning I wrote ‘The Hounds Will Bay for You’.

Will Baumgartner: Kane, that’s a good story. I write fiction, too, and often get ideas for my stories and novels from my dreams. Many of them, not surprisingly, give me more impetus to finally get around to try tackling a screenplay – something I haven’t done yet, but hope to sooner than later. Anyway, it happens at least once a month that I’ll hear or even be singing a song during one of these epic cinematic dream scenes – like it’s a soundtrack for the movie in my head. And I’ll wake up and be like, “That’s not a song I heard somewhere before: that’s a NEW song!”

Cameron Hays: I hate that. In my dreams, I’ll be like, “What a great song. I wish I’d written that.” Then I kick myself when I wake up for not paying closer attention.

Will Baumgartner: Yeah, you gotta remedy that, bro.

Doug Brightwood: My dreams are always me on a toilet in a public place, like a park, or a train station, with mo toilet paper. Songs like this do not sell, still I dream.

Scott Jackson: A thought that has been rattling around in my head… A teacher once told me about the first time he dreamt in English. He immigrated from Syria a long time ago. There was a tipping point where English became his dominant language. Now if Music is truly a language, then what if there is a tipping point where it becomes your dominant dream language. Lots of other weird ideas come to mind along this train of thought.

Derek Ott: I saw Toad The Wet Sprocket in ’92 and it seemed like Glen Phillips, lead singer, introduced every song with “this is about a dream I had”

Dustin Cotter: I hear tunes and compositions… I just cannot remember them… I hear lyrics also.

Do Mi Stauber: Dave Carter wrote ‘Gentle Arms of Eden’ in a dream (and woke up and played it at a farmer’s market). Mine often come to me right when I’m almost completely asleep. I keep my phone/voice recorder nearby because I never ever remember them in the morning, especially melodies.

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