Good evening, and welcome to your selection of songs about sleep and dreaming.
If you have an Earworm you’d like to share, please send an .mp3, .m4a or a link to adempster73@gmail.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be blue(s)– the colour, the emotion, the butterfly, blue remembered hills, music, rowing clubs or anything slightly dodgy or erotic which is publishable. Worms should reach me by close of play of Sunday 7 April.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the Easter break, if you had one. Keep calm and carry on!
Billie Eilish – Bury A Friend – tincanman: Where do we go when we sleep, Billie asks, and Issa López had the same question listening to the song over and over while she wrote the eerie True Detective Season 4. I’ll say no more.
Clock DVA – 4 Hours – shoegazer: Adi having a bit of a nightmare.
Tangerine Dream – The Big Sleep In Search of Hades – severin: Band and song title on topic. An instrumental of course but it does conjure up a dream like landscape.
Hannes Wader – Dat Du Min Leevsten Büst – DebbyM: The granddaddy of German folk singing in Plattdütsch (Come over and knock on my door when my father and my mother are asleep).
Olivia Chaney – Bogeyman – severin: “Why is the bad dream back under my bed? I’m afraid of the dark in childhood sweat”. I know the feeling. Two songs, two weeks in a row from the same new album. You want to buy it now, don’t you?
The Decemberists – Sleepless – glassarfemptee: Toffeeboy has been reminding us recently of the genius of The Decemberists as we await their new album. Here’s a cracker from the ‘Dark is the Night’ charity album.
The Cranberries – Dreams – Fintan28: If I could somehow arrange to dance to this as I pass on that would be a dream. I just revel in this. Absolutely captures the illusory, otherworldly state love can conjure. Love it.
Allison Russell – Snake Life – tincanman: From last year’s The Returner, an album about finding ways to become whole after trauma (she was sexually assaulted by her stepdad). She used to dream to escape, she writes; now she wields words to weave a world where every child is safe and loved.
k d lang – A Sleep With No Dreaming – glassarfemptee: Alt-country singer k d lang is now “semi retired’. This is from 2011’s ‘Sing it Loud’.
Kathy Heideman – Sleep A Million Years – glassarfemptee: Kathy Heideman only released one album, in 1976 (it’s been re-released since). Here’s her carpe diem song.
Jaques Brel – La Ville S’Endormait – Suzi: Gorgeously atmospheric accompaniment to Brel’s song. ‘The city fell asleep, I forget the name.’
Mary Coughlan – Sleep On It – severin: From her House of Ill Repute album. Where the songs about beds aren’t generally about sleeping.
The Beatles – I’m Only Sleeping – Suzi: Waking up but really just wanting to go back to sleep.
Peter Blegvad – Bee Dream – Uncleben: No idea what this is about, but I rather identify with the sentiment in the opening lines: “Each of us has in our soul a portion of eagle, a portion of mole – one soars in the sunlight, one snores in a hole”.
Roy Orbison – Dream Baby ( How Long Must I Dream) Live – Fintan28: The Black & White Roy Orbison Special was a dream collection of Music Industry stars gathered to revel, sing, play with and in general have a damn fine time with Roy Orbison & that marvellous voice. No one had more fun than Bruce Springsteen. When Roy & the assemblage whisper the refrain almost to a stop his joyous shout brings everyone winging back to the business at hand. Dreams!
The Everly Brothers – All I Have To Do Is Dream – Fintan28: 66 years on and the moment I hear that first shimmering, reverb laden chord The Brothers stop me in my tracks and I pause to breathe this in. To me it’s just a perfect pop song.
The Decemberists – Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect – Uncleben: My favourite Decemberists song, and apparently one of Colin Meloy’s too.
Blondie – Dreaming – Suzi: Dreaming is free….another lovely one from Blondie.
Main playlist, blurbs above:
YouTube Playlist, blurbs below:
Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – The Green Manalishi – LongTallSilly: A proper dream from the proper Fleetwood Mac, complete with Peter Green!
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams – LongTallSilly: Still confused as to why they think “thunder only happens when it’s raining” but a decent song from the fluffier version of Fleetwood Mac.
Van Halen – Dreams – MaggieB: This one was suggested by my daughter. Good choice kid.
The Mamas and The Papas – Dream a Little Dream of Me – AliM: There are many wonderful versions of this song, and I picked this one.
Kate Bush – And Dream of Sheep – AliM: I’m not a huge fan of Kate Bush, but I do like sheep, and this is so evocative of craving the safety and oblivion of sleep with the warmth and intoxicating scent of peaceful animals. Or perhaps it’s just me.
The 'Spill 