“Day turned to night. Night became years. She came with the rain. She washed over me”
For the past few albums, I have been focused on telling stories based on the feelings in and around falling in love; it’s a topic I can certainly relate to personally after many bad decisions and one REALLY good one. Haunted Cowboy Sounds definitely falls into that realm - it’s a journey through those feelings.
Through my writing, I have unpacked plenty of emotional baggage (hopefully in an entertaining way!) and as I spend more time chasing inspiration while creating, instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, I have found myself looking for new sources for song ideas and a very interesting source of inspiration has become my dreams.
We all dream. Whether we remember them or not the next day is another topic. There is certainly debate in the scientific community about what functions dreams play in our lives. Are they enabling us to store memories from our day to day life? Are they preparing us for real life fight or flight moments? For many, dreams also have a deeper, spiritual connection. Bringing us closer to our true selves, mystical encounters or maybe even a past life or parallel universe… Maybe someday we’ll get the definitive answer - but for me, the feelings associated with certain dreams have triggered some great songs.
For someone like me that doesn’t get much sleep at night (hello to all my fellow night owls!), I have very vivid dreams in the early morning hours… Many times, the feelings associated with these dreams last for days, or even weeks. On The Robotanist album, the songs Morning Dream and Ghost Girl of Ireland were dream inspired. The dream from Morning Dream, brought me back to the early days of dating the wonderful lady that became my wife. There are several references to the landscape of North Vancouver, Canada (where we lived at the time) - the mountains, the ocean, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets all contributed to the song lyrically.
In Ghost Girl of Ireland, I had a very realistic dream of being me, but not me, if you know what I mean. I was a traveller in Ireland and met, and fell in love with a beautiful ghost in an ancient castle. We lived out my mortal days, but I could not join her in her ghostly world. It was a love that lived a lifetime, but had an end date; my end date. A very strange one for sure, but so vivid, I can still recall many details of the dream and the feelings. The feeling of love, but also sadness, ring throughout that song.
On the Haunted Cowboy Sounds album, She Came with the Rain was a dream-inspired song. And along with the “haunted cowboy sound” I discovered it really set the tone for the album.
While the lyrics are not overly complicated, or obviously dream based, the emotions of the song came from a vivid morning dream. A woman, dressed all in white, emerged from a Summer storm. Our love for each other was immediate and strong. We built our lives together, helping to make each other stronger as we grew together. A dream that really reminded me of my life and relationship with my wife. (Hey, maybe I am writing happy songs after all - lol!)
While my latest songs seem to revolve around the emotions of finding or losing love, you just never know where the next source of inspiration will come from. Maybe I’ll take a little nap and find out… See ya next time!
In case you haven’t heard it yet, here is the video for She Came With the Rain:
And since we’re talking about dreams, let’s have a listen to the quintessential song about dreams - The Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams”:
You can pre-order Haunted Cowboy Sounds now, and the full album arrives on Bandcamp on November 13th.
It hits Spotify and the streaming services on November 14th. Stay tuned here for more news about the album and some special online events.
There will also be a few surprises along the way!