Party Without Me

I always thought recurring dreams were made up, or at least exaggerated. Like maybe you had a similar dream once or twice or something. But starting around the beginning of the pandemic, I started having a specific dream about once or twice a month. Then, around the time my son was born, I started having that same dream maybe 4 times a week. I think it’s probably the easiest recurring dream possible to psychoanalyze. 

Here is a very simple description of the dream (it’s nearly identical every time):

It’s a group trip! And it’s sometime between 2016 and 2019! The gang’s all ready to go. We’ve got an airbnb booked and we’re ready for a Friday thru Sunday of partying, board games, cooking, skiing (or waterskiing), and it’s gonna be great. But oh no, I’ve either double-booked, forgotten to cancel an appointment, or bitten off more than I can chew responsibility-wise! Ugh: I promised someone I’d help them with something on Saturday evening; I have a family thing Saturday during the day that I forgot I already said I could do; I have to finish a huge thing for work that’s due Sunday night; I need to feed the cat I’m catsitting! Oh well, I’m gonna still go on the trip, and I’ll just leave early Saturday morning to do my thing, then hopefully just come back either late Saturday, or super early Sunday blah blah blah. It’ll be fine. It’ll be worth it! Sometimes it’s as doable as Western MA —> home to Boston —> back to Western MA. Other times it’s NYC —> home to Boston —> back NYC. Once it was Cuba —> home to Boston —> back to Cuba but with a stop in Miami. 

Ok that was too much description of a dream. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. But at least I didn’t describe the actual weird things in a dream (“and you were in it, but it wasn’t you. Then we realized we were at school, but like, it was a different version of school…”) I just explained the concept. Right? Right?

The only main variations from dream to dream are:

high school crew or college crew?

ski trip or lake/beach trip?

That’s literally about it. Usually it’s a ski trip.

Interesting similarities in every dream in this series:

gross bathrooms at the airbnb;

an artistic video game or Indiana Jones style birds eye view animation of my vehicle on a map whenever I’m traveling;

when it’s a ski trip, and on the rare chance that I actually successfully get to ski, the mountain is mostly mud and grass and rocks. Very minimal snow coverage.

These are incredibly stressful dreams and I have them constantly. They’re not super vivid, but they are memorable.

It’s interesting because I’ve definitely done this in real life maybe once or twice, when it was absolutely necessary.

I need a vacation. Anyone wanna ski before winter’s over?

Music section:

I was away for work for the first week of this assignment, so I did something for the first time: Wrote the entire song while walking down a street by signing into my Voice Memo app. Lyrics, melody, form, estimated chords, and a couple notes to myself. (Assignment rule #3)

When i got home, i kind of tracked it very quickly and didnt think too much about production, writing, sounds, instrumentation. Just wanted to experiment by getting everything out of my head and voice memo, and into Logic.

As for rule #2, I wanted to interweave what I heard in my head while writing it with what was possible to actually record. That left me with a fast funky highhat groove, accompanying a fairly subdued vocal and chord performance. And theres some organ. Organ is circussy. Dreams are circussy. So, organ.

Lyrics:

Everybody’s here and they’re staring at me weird cuz we’re leaving

Ya were peacing out from there for some reason I forget

Tell ’em that i’ll be back (and)

Just party without me til I sneak back

These Friday Sunday things don’t leave a lotta free time to make a bee line

To shuttle back to Beantown and to get myself back just in time for the cleanup

Ya i just want

To hang out for a weekend

(Just a weekend)

Ya i just want

To have that middle day be free

i just need

To find out what it means

this inability to ignore

responsibilities while I snore

Is it me?

Am I asleep?

• Indie Rock