Dream Songs: “Casting”
Click the player below to hear the song, “Casting”
Some songs come to me in my dreams…
Every song comes to me in its own way. (It’s very rare that I decide, “I think I’ll write a song today,” and then sit down and ‘craft’ a song.)
This song, Casting, was a melody that I just started playing on my guitar, without thinking. Just a simple melody, sparse and so beautiful, that I did not consciously write…it just began. I played this melody over and over, hundreds of times…I was entranced by it! It became a meditation: I would hug my guitar, my ear to its body, play this melody again and wonder: Where did this come from? Is there a story here? What is this song about?
Click the player below to hear the song, “Casting”
Each night before sleep I would ask for the lyrics to come to me in my dreams. And sure enough, one night I had this dream:
Walking in a valley of green, huge white clouds floating above cast a shadow on me; they created a coolness in the breeze, and hid the sun. Next, I was looking into a vast, dark sky with millions of stars and the full moon. Suddenly, the moon cast a net of stars from within itself, softly exploding, silently creating a star shower. The stars fell from the sky to where we stood, arms outstretched, to “catch them all, as they fall.” Next, I am standing on the beach, hand in hand with Someone, as the sea cast its spell over us in the waves lapping over our feet.
The scenes unfolded like the scenes in a movie….and while I observed this ‘movie’ the melody was playing, like a soundtrack. Another part of my mind realized that I was dreaming the song, and I remember telling myself: “I have to remember this!”
I woke up and wrote the lyrics, which very closely describe the scenes from my dream, and became the song, “Casting.”
CASTING
A cloud cast a shadow over me
Stirred the breeze, cooled the heat
That’s in me, that’s in you.
The moon cast its net over the stars
Where we are, catch them all, as they fall
Over me, over you
Over us
Arms stretched out to the sky
There must be something You can tell us
All we ask is “Why?”
The sea cast a spell over the sand, where we stand
Hand in hand
It’s only me
It’s only you
Only Us
Only Us.
Listen to this song, and the rest of the songs, on my album, “Twist Run Road”
