Matt's Liner Notes: 1 Dreams

Posted by Matt Monday, September 07, 2009

Warning: There are three (3) paragraphs of liberal claptrap just ahead. Things clear up after that.

Around 2005, as the Bush administration settled in for a second term, I became overwhelmed with frustration at lies we Americans were being told by our government. Falsehoods regarding the war in Iraq, the torture of prisoners, wire tapping – almost everything – were so widespread that to talk about the situation with anyone but a close confidant would always make me worry that I would be perceived as a crazed conspiracy theorist.

At times I felt like we were a nation of children with a terrible lying father. We believed and repeated what we had to just to get along, walking and working in a haze of deception.

Along with the lies, to my mind there was self-delusion going on in the halls of government as well. The intellectuals who had provided some of the rationale for the Iraq war had developed a belief that if the US could overturn the Iraqi government, a western-friendly democracy would take root there. And then, inspired by that democracy, the remaining states of the Middle East would transform themselves like a chain of falling dominoes into a sprouting garden of free democratic republics.

That particular theory, and the thousands of young lives it was costing our country, forced into my consciousness the words, “I must learn to not pretend. These dreams are killing me.” The phrases just spilled out along with their melody in a single moment.

But what made me excited to finish this song was that these words about dreams and reality had meaning for me personally as well. As a musician I had fixed myself in my mind to a certain self-conception that was beginning to feel more and more unrelated to my true life. Somehow during the previous decade I had metamorphosed from a long-haired touring musician into a divorced man with a full time job living alone with his 3 year old daughter. I needed to study a little bit of reality myself.

I remember at the time, well-meaning friends warned me against the perils of letting my daughter sleep in my bed. But, really, who in our situation could ever resist? Neither one of us. I remember working excitedly on the words to “Dreams” while lying on navy blue sheets with my girl sleeping at my side. Most of the lyrics unspooled for me right then on that first night. Such a beautiful memory.

Posted by psh 2009 09 07

Lovely image…thanks for letting us in…

Posted by Kara 2009 09 07

Bah!!!! I thought this song was about LSD!!!! I mustve spent at least THREE 2-day trips alone with this track, thinkin we were on the same wavelength!! Youve RUINED it for me!!!

Posted by Heisenberg 2009 09 09

I’m with Heisenberg…

Posted by John 2009 09 09

Matt’s insight neither enhances or ruins this song for me. I can appreciate an artist revealing his inspirations… it’s hard and risky to do that. But the meaning of this song to me… the one that happened upon first listen… will always be uniquely mine. Granted, I heard the song before I read the above.
Still, I don’t think it would have influenced the experience.
I think that no one need worry. The beauty of this work will transcend it’s origins.
I sure hope the mail carrier brings red plastic soon…

Posted by tuneloom 2009 09 09

I don’t buy the “liberal claptrap” part of your explanation (I like it. I just don’t see that being the basis for this song).

I do think the song is about a person struggling with self-deception. Someone wanting a dream or idealized self, life, world and never getting that in reality. This someone then has to come to terms with reality; to appreciate the less than ideal…because the desire for something different (and better) is eating away at the never satisfied perfection seeker. (It relates to the song “Deep All the Way Down”)

I love the vision of you writing songs while laying next to your daughter. My 2 year old son sometimes sleeps in our very small bed. It does feel great, doesn’t it?

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