Pipe Dreams

Album: The Ride (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • The lead single from The Ride finds Nelly Furtado singing about the false hope of dreaming even when you want to live in a fantasy.

    Don't sell me no pipe dreams, I want to live in a kaleidoscope

    Furtado explained to The Fader: "A lot of [The Ride] touches on that, in terms of sanity versus reality. The comedown, the hangover after the rush, and how you put the pieces back together, and how you make amends with the realer parts of life."
  • A pipe dream is a fanciful hope or plan that is highly unlikely to succeed, indulged when smoking a pipe. The expression originated with opium smoking.
  • Nelly Furtado wrote the song in Kenya. She recalled to Billboard magazine: "When I was walking with a big canister of water on my back, I started writing 'Pipe Dreams.' It was basically, don't give me your artificialness - it could play into friendship, lovers or anything. Don't give me the watered-down version of you. I want the real you."

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