Ave Dreamer

Album: I Tell a Fly (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • After seeing the phrase "an alien with extraordinary abilities" written on his visa to America, Benjamin Clementine began considering what the disarmingly strange line meant. He explained:

    "I was baffled for about ten minutes when I first saw that visa. But then I thought to myself, I am an alien. I'm a wanderer. In most places I've been, I've always been different. And so I began to think about the story of a couple of birds, who are in love: one is afraid to go further, and the other is taking a risk, to see what happens."

    The incident was the starting part for Clementine's I Tell a Fly album, which loosely follows a pair of winged creatures as they fly across various border scenes.
  • I Tell a Fly concludes with this song on which Clementine warns "Barbarians are coming!" Q magazine asked him who are the Barbarians? He replied:

    "The people who perpetuate fear. Since about 2010, I've noticed there's been this focus that we must be scared, we must be on our toes. And the best way to stop that fear is to keep dreaming, which is why I sing 'Dreamers, stay strong!'"

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