This Dream of You

Album: Together Through Life (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • In this song, a man dreams of a lost love. This dream, which the man sometimes mistakes for reality, is what keeps him going through his otherwise miserable existence: "I wonder why I'm so frightened of dawn/All I have and all I know/Is this dream of you/Which keeps me living on." Dylan hinted to The Telegraph that he is the man in this song: "...it's not a character like in a book or a movie. He's not a bus driver. He doesn't drive a forklift. He's not a serial killer. It's me who's singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors." Dylan added that if an actor had to sing this song, it would be "James Cagney or Mickey Rooney."
  • The lyrics open up with a man sitting in a "nowhere café." Dylan ambiguously elaborated on this café to The Telegraph: "It sounds like it's south of the border or close to the border... But if you have those kind of thoughts and feelings you know where the guy is. He's right where you are. If you don't have those thoughts and feelings then he doesn't exist."
  • This waltz-paced, Latin-flavored tune is the only song on Together For Life that Dylan has sole writing credit for. Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter, has co-writing credits on all the other tracks.

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