In Dreams (song)
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- For the song from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, see Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
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| “In Dreams” | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Roy Orbison from the album In Dreams |
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| B-side | "Shahadaroba" | ||||
| Released | February 1963 | ||||
| Label | Monument 806 | ||||
| Writer(s) | Roy Orbison | ||||
| Roy Orbison singles chronology | |||||
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"In Dreams" is a song composed and sung by American rock and roll performer Roy Orbison. An operatic ballad of lost love, it was released as a single on Monument Records in February 1963. It became the title track on the album In Dreams, released in July 1963. It also appears on his posthumous 1989 album A Black & White Night Live, the soundtrack from the 1988 HBO television special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night.
The popular single hit #7 on Billboard's Hot 100 and was his first single to officially cross to their Easy Listening survey (#3).
The song's opening line refers to "A candy-colored clown they call the Sandman". The Sandman is a character in Hans Christian Andersen's children stories who brings sleep and dreams by sprinkling magic sand onto the sleeping.
If the structure of a standard pop song is ABABCAB (verse-chorus, verse-chorus, bridge, verse-chorus), then the structure of "In Dreams" is ABCDE; the lyrics "A candy-colored clown," "I close my eyes," "In dreams I walk with you," "But just before the dawn," and "It's too bad that all these things" all introduce sections of new musical material that are never repeated.
In 1988, songwriters Will Jennings and Richard Kerr wrote a response to "In Dreams" called "In The Real World," which Orbison recorded for his album Mystery Girl (which was released posthumously in 1989).
[edit] In popular culture
- Perhaps the most famous use of "In Dreams" in media was prominently in David Lynch's landmark cult thriller Blue Velvet (1986). The sadistic villain of the film Frank Booth, played by Dennis Hopper, seems to be obsessed with the tune (along with the Bobby Vinton song "Blue Velvet").
- The song also appeared in, and provided the title for, Neil Jordan's 1999 psychological thriller In Dreams.
- In 2004, Rolling Stone named "In Dreams" as one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
