Bob Dylan: This Dream Of You

SONG This Dream Of You

SONGWRITER Bob Dylan

PERFORMER Bob Dylan

APPEARS ON Together Through Life (2009)

NOTE Stupid And Contagious contributed this insightful essay about one of the ballads on Bob Dylan's outstanding new album

From Bob Dylan's latest meisterwerk Together Through Life comes the gorgeous, yearning, classic "This Dream Of You".

"This Dream Of You" is actually the only song on the album composed entirely by Dylan alone. Although nine of the ten tracks from the album were co-written by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, both the music and lyrics for ‘This Dream Of You’ were composed by Bob Dylan.

"This Dream Of You" is a beautiful ballad of powerful, sculpted, existentialist poetry meshed with wonderful, delicate, Tex-Mex instrumentation, embellished by the magnificent accordion work of Los Lobos frontman David Hidalgo.

One of the best songs on the new LP, "This Dream Of You" harks back to the themes and tone of Dylan's previous album, the majestic Modern Times from 2004.

The song simply and sublimely explores themes of love, loss and mortality.

Like a rueful flawed existentialist character in perhaps a Shakesperian tragedy or perhaps a classic film noir - a genre that Dylan loves (we read a report that most if not all the DVD's Dylan takes with him on tour are Noirs!) - a desperate man - "I'm lost in the crowd, all my tears are gone" - sits alone in the desolate enigmatic "Nowhere Cafe" watching another night end, warily awaiting a dawn he doesn't really want to see.

In this grim, lonely location, he meditates upon his life, which is almost ended, and upon the many things lost down those long hard years ... "Everything I touch seems to disappear."

We don't know if this character's weakness has been a tendency for over-ponderance instead of direct action, like Hamlet, or perhaps a tendency for rapid action without thinking, like Macbeth. Regardless, he rues whatever weaknesses have led to his current dire plight.

He's had chances to make things better but opportunities were wasted and he knows there will be few if any more such opportunities ... "There's a moment when all old things become new again, but that moment might have come and gone."

This is expressed most poignantly and beautifully in the evocative poetic lines "From a cheerless room, in a curtain gloom, I saw a star from Heaven fall. I turned and looked again but it was gone."

Nevertheless, hope is still alive in his heart. Hope for love at last. Hope for some sort of a future. Hope etched out in the haunting refrain "All I have and all I know is this dream of you which keeps me living on."

However, the hard lessons of life cause him to have some serious doubts ... "Am I too blind to see? Is my heart playing tricks on me?"

Despite these doubts, he still believes. This hope - regardless how realistic - may be all he has, but it's powerful enough to give him the strength to greet another bright dawn of another dark feared day.

LYRICS

How long can I stay

In this nowhere café 'fore night turns into day

I wonder why I’m so frightened of dawn

All I have and all I know

Is this dream of you which keeps me living on

There’s a moment when

All old things become new again

But that moment might have come and gone

All I have and all I know

Is this dream of you which keeps me living on

I look away but I keep seeing it

I don’t want to believe but I keep believing it

Shadows dance upon the wall

Shadows that seem to know it all

Am I too blind to see

Is my heart playing tricks on me

I’m lost in the crowd, all my tears are gone

All I have and all I know

Is this dream of you which keeps me living on

Everything I touch seems to disappear

Everywhere I turn, you are always here

I’ll run this race until my earthly death

I’ll defend this place with my dying breath

From a cheerless room

In a curtain gloom, I saw a star from heaven fall

I turned and looked again but it was gone

All I have and all I know

Is this dream of you which keeps me living on