Music Notes

Dream, by ID

Track #18 is a deep cut from the 2015 Imagine Dragons album Smoke + Mirrors.

Sound:
Dream is one of only two ID songs I prefer to hear live rather than the original studio track. When I first listened to it off the album, I thought it was slow, dreary and pointless, with a plodding piano line, moaning and groaning, and painfully unhappy lyrics.

While browsing YouTube later, I found several live, professionally filmed performances from South America, which entirely changed how I perceived the song. Dream comes alive onstage in so many ways.

Seeing the young Dan Reynolds singing his heart out adds sincerity to the whining pathos, and the screaming fans add a haunting background to the vocal harmonies. The moment where I always get goosebumps, however, is at the end, where Dan holds out the mic and the entire audience sings the final post-chorus alone in perfect unison. South American fans are unmatched in their devotion.

Theme:
Dream deals with the idea of coming of age, seeing real life and realizing it isn't the way you were told, and choosing to retreat into escapism due to an overwhelming sense of helplessness in the face of a broken world.

The words show a literary depth and quality of thought, especially in the second verse: "the cries from the strangers out at night/ they don't keep us up at night, we have the curtains drawn and closed." It's all too easy to shut off the news and hide behind ivory walls while others suffer. But what can one lonely soul do about any of it?

The cover art by Tim Cantor   shows a young girl falling through an abyss, eyes tightly shut as she clutches a partially eaten apple. It is emblematic of loss of innocence, anguish, and escape into tainted imagination.

These days, I think we can all agree with Dan: "everything's a mess."

Significance:
Dream taught me to recognize my pull towards a refusal to acknowledge reality, and understand some of the root causes behind it. It also showed me how beautiful a live performance can be, even if the song isn't one I think I'm interested in.

Words: 367.