I’ve had a song stuck in my head for the past couple of days. And I think when you know what the song is, and I tell you the parts that are lingering in my mind, it will probably explain a lot about how my life is going now.
The song is grunge, 90s, rock, with a cruncy guitar and a deep-voiced male vocalist and the hook catches my attention right away. I am the kind of person who absolutely listens to, and tries to contextualize, the lyrics, and the opening stanzas are about not wanting to wake up from a beautiful dream. Hiding from the painful, hate-filled, stressful, disconnected real world; that is a yearning I share, more and more every day. I’m dragging my ass through the day-to-day, trying to make sure that every day I’m doing everything I can to try to get the income and resources that will let me keep a roof over my head. It’s bad, and feels like it’s getting worse.
The ones we have elected to lead us are absolutely not on the same page as the majority of us. They diminish and dismiss — or worse, oppose — our protests. We stand together and say “not in our name” and they claim we’re on the side of the enemy, an enemy they’ve demonized and dehumanized. The people our leaders listen to just want to collect as much profit as possible, stockpiling away billions that are generated by the labor we are all forced, under pain of death, to generate.
It’s obscene. I know no other way to describe it.
My dreams can be so much better than the real world. In part because sometimes, rarely, I can dream lucidly. If you’re not aware of what lucid dreaming is, it’s the ability to regain control and consiciousness while still in a dreaming state. When that happens, it feels like I can actually do magic; anything I can imagine becomes possible, at least as long as I stay asleep.
I’m not sure the vocalist for this song is singing about lucid dreaming but it’s clear that when they are sleeping, they see a perfect, love-filled, beautiful world. In the second verse, they even admit that the dreams help them see how imperfect the world, the real world, is. And finally they sing about making their dreams and the world the same.
“Let’s ask; can we stay?” is the line that nearly brings me to tears. Who’s permission do I need to stay in a perfect world? What sacrifice do I need to make in order to make the earth and my dreams the same? My aching heart, my tired soul, my punished mind and aging body, would give almost anything for a real world that is even slightly better for us, all of us, the ones whose blood make things work but do not get to retain the rewards of our efforts.
The final refrains of the song are where my hope does not feel able to meet the vocalists’ hope. The music swells, the vocalists’ voice lifts and roars, the guitars crunch… and my own spirits fall. I replay the song, hoping this time my shriveled heart will be able to keep going.
With him up up, I’m not strong enough to take these dreams and make them mine.
But maybe you are. Can you take me higher?
WOW
🖤🖤🖤