Dreaming a Song

After months of not writing any songs I dreamt a song last night. This happens occasionally, and it's always part of a dream-drama. Usually it's a song that someone is singing in the dream, either on stage or sometimes singing it especially for me. This particular song was an accompanying soundtrack, in the manner of Monsieur Hulot although slower.

In my dream I was at the dream railway station (you know, the same non-existent place that regularly features in your dreams). I was waiting for a train to Milton Keynes to do a gig, and I had my guitar with me.

In an earlier dream the same night, I hadn't packed away the guitar lead properly and it seemed to get longer and longer as I stuffed it into the case, so much so that I ended up being unable to zip up the pocket at the front of the case that's designed to hold guitar leads. I'd just left it partly open as a result, with the lead coiled mockingly and peeping out of the top.

Anyway the train I was due to get was the 5 o'clock train, and I left my unwieldy guitar with it's dangling leads in the waiting room to go to the concourse and look at the train indicator board, which was a fetching old-fashioned one made of wood with ivory-coloured sections a bit like those boards they have in churches with the hymn numbers slotted into them.

I was somehow so absorbed by looking at the train times that I actually missed the train. Somewhere in my consciousness, I knew this was just a dream, so I rushed to the waiting room to get my guitar, convinced that I could catch the train anyway, because the dream could scroll back to a time when I hadn't missed it. But the dream wasn't playing ball. The hands of the old-fashioned waiting room clock said five o'clock, and I was too late no matter how much I tried to run.

A few weeks ago in real life I missed a train and my ticket was one of those non-transferable ones where you have to get a new one. With a sinking heart, I realised that I'd done it again. Then I hit on a ruse! 

I reached up, took the clock from the wall and spun the hands round to ten minutes to five. Clever me! I could say the clock had stopped before five and it wasn't my fault! Give me a free ticket for the next train!

All this time a little tune was playing in the background. Gradually I woke up, prompted by the alarming addition to the dream of a passenger who had gone into the waiting room just after I'd left, seen the clock set at five o'clock, and blew the whistle on my ruse. Dammit! Caught in a lie, missed the train and probably the gig too.

I'm still singing the little tune in my head. It reminds me of an early Beatles melody, and the next thing that happens is that I wait for the lyrics to show up. They will probably arrive on the next train.