Future Islands – “Little Dreamer”
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Some songs reverberate beyond themselves, thrust by associated experience into the eternal. When I think of the stunning, soulful indie anthem that is “Little Dreamer”, it evokes warm memories of illegal warehouse shows, frenetic, youthful energy, and the thrilling, sweaty catharsis that accompanied every Future Islands show in 2008.
Six years later, it has also entered a larger narrative, playing its part in my rebirth and rehabilitation after an accident. Below I’ve included a story about the song, the one with which I christened a blog reflecting on aspects of my recovery. I can think of no better time (100 issues into Wax Atlas) or place (amongst friends who understand the healing power of music) to reflect upon its power again:
After nine months in facilities ranging from shock trauma units to old folks homes, I’ve emerged from the innards of the “institution.” The sites outside are strange — the joys muted as if every rediscovery has a museum-like quality: “this is the field where you once ran. This is the yard you once mowed. These are the cows that unscuplous youths once tipped in the night”
On first entry, my childhood home is a wreck of joy and despair, peppered with memories of the deep and distant past. My brother and mother have decked the downstairs apartment (bedroom, office, kitchen, bathroom) with items from my more recent homes. My record player is the most welcome sight. Grasping for rails, I pull myself across the carpet. Tears well in my eyes, but I hold back the choke. An orange LP — still in place from when I laid it almost a year ago in San Francisco — peers at me. A limited edition version of Future Islands’ first, self-released record, Wave Like home. With my good arm I hoist the needle, eyeing the grooves for the final track. As the record plays, old rooms merge with this room and for the first time in almost a year, the feeling of life isn’t entirely foreign.
I caught you sleeping here, all wrapped in wool
I caught you sleeping here, almost broke my heart
I found you dreaming
I’m dreaming of you always
When I was just a child, a lonely boy
I held onto my dreams, like they could run from me
The hopes I harbored fled, as they often do
But I still dreamed of you
And now my dreams come true
And as we say goodnight, I hold you close and tight
No more raging suns, only waning ones
Like the waxing scar where my lonely heart
Once bloomed before I met you
My little dreamer, I’ll always
Always dream of you
ever has the fact that a performer was watering it down for whitey seemed so abundantly clear.
Released the same year as James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club does the Godfather of Soul one better, backing the same brand of scorching swagger with an infinitely superior set of pipes. Whereas Brown and other contemporaries were focused on raw energy, Cooke courts a range of emotions, seducing certain notes and blowing the top off of others. In the end, his range proves as unassailable as his ever-pristine pipes.
