Last night I had the strangest dream. I mean, I've had some unlikely dreams in my life, but this one was unique.

I was walking down the street in Boston, when an old beat-up car with three guys in it came driving slowly by. They had the windows rolled down, and Spanish Merchant's Daughter was playing. That's a song that I learned, along with most of the toher songs, on the Anthology of American Folk Music. I used to sing it with an old friend of mine, Luke Faust. It's a pretty obscure song, so I was floored when I heard it coming out of a car stereo. I ran alongside the car and called to the guys in it, and as it turned out, they were pulling over anyway, to park the car. When I talked to them, they invited me to come inside, which I did. I was lying on the couch, and someone handed me a large acoustic "guitar" unlike any I'd ever seen before. It only had four strings, and the two middle strings were tuned to the same note. The Bass and top string were an octave apart, and the whole instrument was tuned low: like a bass guitar. I started picking around on it and ended up laying Trouble Don't Last Always.. another obscure recording that I have on tape, identified only as "Jamaican Trio." I did the song, all the way through, slipping in verses of other songs, like Oh, Death, that fit, and the tuning worked just fine.

By the time that I finished, three or four more guys had arrived, and they all gathered around in a circle, and started playing. They played a song Jesse Didn't show up for work this morning (which doesn't exist,) and the sang in great, four-part harmony, with different guys taking leads on different lines, sometime singing in two-part harmony. It was an old-time string band sound, and I heard all the parts... mandolin, and fiddle included. It was a terrific song. Apparently, they couldn't do the installation (as the song says) because Jesse didn't show up for work that morning.

And then I woke up.

I've had dreams with songs that don't exist, on many occasions. I've sometimes remembered enough to complete the songs, but I could only remember two lines of this one. It was just plain weird that I heard all the harmony lines, and the instruments. Usually, it's just the melody and words of a song. I've never heard a six man old-time string band do a song, with all the harmonies and instrumental lines worked out.

Like many other songwriters, I keep a pad and pen by my bed (or now, I come downstairs and type the words into my computer more commonly.)
I've had songs come in dreams with as many as three verses intact, when I wake up. Some, I just remember one line. I built a whole song around one verse from a dream, because I found it so fascinating:

"And somewhere inside her, there's still that young girl
   With a tortoise-shell comb in her hair"

I doubt that I ever could have written such a wonderful, evocative line while I was awake..

Jerry