My Dream #5 (January 20, 2020)

Dream

There were wooded hills on the edge of some suburban streets. Stax, my Whippet, was scampering about in them.
There was also a deer there who would come up to me for some affection. It was a doe.

Daydream

Tiredness can diminish imagination. So sitting here, on a day that features a lack of sleep from the night before, trying to dial something up, I am reminded of a hot summer day probably around 1966; when at the age of six I complained to my mother that I had nothing to do. All the kids in the neighborhood were at camp or elsewhere, for some other reason. Maria, being the beautiful spirit she was, said, “How would you like to go out side and paint the front wall for me?” I looked at her with my head tilted like a confused pup. But after a few seconds I thought…that sounds like fun! Yes! She then handed me a paint brush and a coffee can filled with water and told me to get to it. Andiamo, Marco! Of course I had to keep going to the spigot to refill the can. I did that for a few hours but the joy of this endeavor made it feel like a few minutes. Being a songwriter, I pride myself in having a very good imagination. After all, I learned from the best. Maria Alberta. My steam.

My full Bandcamp discography is now available at a 20% discount. And coming soon are my first 3 full length albums, Lust For Wanda, Ping!, and Marc Teamaker.www.marcteamaker.bandcamp.com

My Dream #4

Fragments of a dream.

We are in a house that my brother built. At the beginning of the dream the mother of a student of mine is there with me. She is younger than me by about 15 years, and blonde. There is someone else there too, but I don’t know who. The mother goes down into the basement and I go looking in a cupboard, under a sink, which is off to the side of the kitchen. I am trying to find pot…the green kind. I find it and want to share it with the mother but the other someone says that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Now I go looking for a room upstairs, where I can smoke it, and come upon one of the attic kind with grey wall to wall carpeting. The windows are low to the ground.

The dream shifts.

The house is to be sold now and I am still there with a different other someone. I couldn’t tell you who that was either. There is also a 6 year old boy with me and we both go out back and around to the side of the house where there are steps leading up to the front. Steely Dan’s ‘Kid Charlemagne” is playing but it doesn’t sound the same as in the waking life. The boy says he likes it.

My Dream #3 January, 14, 2020

Daydream

Tell me how you really feel from behind your glass of wine. The kid’s a romantic with visions of other places and times. Short snippets of inhabiting someone else’s body…or flashes against a window to the sky.

Like a room service double play I fell for you twice. Once in this life and now in some other dimension. A beautiful golden dream like space in my mind. I imagine, still, that I’ve always known you and we are walking down that dirt country road. The one that leads to summer. The one that leads to hope. We are twelve or thirteen. The best age.

My Dream #2 (January 11, 2020)

The girl at the top of the steps, who looked like a young Helena Bonham Carter, said you should go to church this morning. Just as she said that I awoke to look at my watch. It read 3:33.

It’s a spring day on January eleventh and that sends my mind wandering. We are on walks over to Kedzie via Lawrence eastward passing the Brown Line glancing to the right and spying the Huddle House. It was possible that we found ourselves there at four in the morning after a show…the waitress saying in a cigarette gruff voice, as she puts down a Denver skillet and a Swiss cheese omelette, “Looks like you two had a rough night.” 

With weather like this the roughness of the night before is tempered a bit. But now I have to snap out of this daydream prayer because I have responsibilities to attend to eight hundred and twenty seven miles east. It was nice spending time with her again…just for the moment…light years away. Yes. Perhaps. But she is hardwired to my soul.

My Dream (January 10, 2020)

I took a wrong turn and wound up in this beautiful place. I was on an icy winter road and then found myself in a golden city on the water. I asked a couple of pretty strangers where I was but they couldn’t tell me. A young blonde girl named Morgan was watching her blonde friends dancing in a dance troupe clogging up the middle of the street that was under a roof. It was kind of like an outdoor mall or place where tourists would go. She was with a young boy with curly hair on a bicycle. He had a very warm feeling about him. Then an old lady phoned Violeta’s mother and she said that help was on the way. She put a radio on a table and it said that one thousand troops from New Town would be coming to help. The old lady said a boat would be coming to pick everyone up. I looked out of a window to see a small body of water leading out into a larger body of water. There was a lot of green and across the way a beautiful city. A European looking city with domes. I tried to guess the name but a voice said not to try.

“Scenes From a Snow Globe”

For a number of years, Jared Nixon, my longtime friend and band mate, had encouraged me to come up with a Christmas song;  or at least a seasonal piece of music. Never one for this type of endeavor, I always kind of fluffed it off with. “Maybe I’ll get around to it” or “It’s really not my thing.” However, in the past year, finishing work on “all the little mornings,” it started.

We were done with a session and as we sat down to a well deserved cocktail, Jared presented my Scotch with a pad and pencil. We were obviously to begin. Actually during the day’s session I showed Jared a piece of music I was working on and I’m sure this was the impetus for him handing me these tools.

I had this one dummy lyric I was using for the chord changes I was showing him, “I think of the time now.” So naturally we agreed to put that line down first. It sang well in what would become the chorus. We were off to the races…or sleigh ride.

We both agreed that we didn’t want it to be cheesy or kitschy. We wanted it to be seasonal but crossover into just a regular rock song. We bandied about some more themes and lines and got a nice back and forth going… but we didn’t finish it there. In subsequent weeks and months the song came to fruition. Jared sent me the wonderful verses and I handled the chorus and bridge sections. Instead of describing it I will let the lyric speak for itself.

Scenes From a Snow Globe. (Think of the Time)

Good God I had

Another dream about you in my head

A sugar plumb vision dancing

At the foot of my bed

I think of the time now

It’s cold and lonely

At this time of year

So I tried to write a letter

But a letter won’t get you here

(Chorus)

I think of the time now

When everything slowed down

If I could rewind now

Back to you

(Bridge)

It’s a scene inside a snow globe

We’re two little figures

On a sleigh ride

Side by side

(Bridge 2)

Over a blanket of cotton

Yeah we’re two little figures

Winding our way back home

A scene in a snow globe

Good God I had

Another dream about you in my head

A sugar plumb vision dancing

At the foot of my bed

I think of the time now

When everything slowed down

If I could rewind now

I think of the time now

When everything slowed down

If I could rewind now

Back to you

I think of the time now

When everything slowed down

If I could rewind now

And think of the time now

Winding our way

Rewinding our way back

Words and music by Marc Teamaker and Jared Nixon copyright 2019 all rights reserved .

2 new singles, “Light Years” and “Scenes From a Snow Globe (Think of the Time) are now available at http://www.marcteamaker.bandcamp.com. “Scenes From A Snow Globe (Think of the Time)” “Light Years”

“all the little mornings” compact disc