Songfacts®:

• Early in Angel Olsen's career, she befriended country rock singer-songwriter Will Oldham, also known as Bonnie Prince Billy. He invited her to go on tour as his backing vocalist and she contributed vocals to his 2011 album Wolfroy Goes to Town. On "Dream Thing," Olsen sings about trying to remember the lyrics to the Wolfroy Goes to Town track "Black Captain."
  
  I was searchin' my mind for
  The words to that Black Captain song
  I was lookin' at old you
  Lookin' at who you've become
  
  The song finds Olsen reflecting on working with Bonnie Prince Billy and his collaborator Emmett Kelly. "My relationship with them now is nonexistent," she told Mojo magazine. "You spend two years working with someone and memorizing all their songs to never speak to them again. It was professional almost to a fault."
  
  "I was having dreams a lot about Emmett because we had dated briefly and I had finally seen him after years of not talking with him and it was really nice," she continued. "It was such a formative time for me, I couldn't really let go of how weird that experience was. I'm really grateful for all the things I learned about being in a touring band - but when I got my band together and started to tour, I was like, I want to do it differently, I don't want it to be disconnected, I don't want it to be cold."
• Olsen recorded the song for Big Time. She co-produced the record with Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Conor Oberst) in his Topanga Canyon studio.
• Olsen played guitar on the track along with Jake Blanton, and Wilson played drums, percussion and zither. The other musicians are:
  
  Spencer Cullum: pedal steel guitar
  Drew Erickson: Solina synthesizer, organ, piano, Wurlitzer
  Emily Elhaj: bass
  
  Songwriter and musician Drew Erickson played on all 10 Big Time tracks. His resumé also includes co-writing six of Lana Del Rey's Blue Banisters tracks, playing on Weyes Blood's Titanic Rising album, and arranging the strings on the Killers collaboration with Weyes Blood, "My God."