WHEN THE MUSIC LEADS YOUR DREAMS.

It happened an hour ago. I don't know how I ended up in that place. Probably by boat but I could have also been teleported as far as I can remember. It was a small Island, although I never saw its shores. There was an old city made prevalently of high-rise buildings. The weirdest thing about that massive
urban architecture was its rural look. Everything was made of many stones of different sizes rather clumsily put together. I had an apartment in the attic, at least fifty meters above the ground, and I remember that I kept guessing my name from time to time. I didn't know who I was in that dream, and even less what the hell was I supposed to do in that place.

Now, with all that said, you may ask why this post isn't in some writing, dreaming, travel, or fantasizing-related community.

Well, at one point I heard music coming through an open window. The city below me was dipped in dense fog, it was like it didn't exist, so it felt like the song came out of nowhere although it must have been played in some weird, probably very shady bar I don't dare to imagine.

When I woke up, the following song was playing on YouTube.

The sound volume was very low, so I could barely hear it. The song in the dream was different but it clearly had a lot to do with what was coming out of the speakers of my computer.

I haven't listened to Tom Waits for years, and I used to listen to his albums over and over again in the days before YouTube, the Internet, blockchains, and all that stuff. I mean, the Internet was there at some point, but I didn't use it or give the slightest shit about that new wonder.
I had another phase when I listened only to the strangest of his albums in 2013, or 2014, if I remember correctly. And I used YouTube then.

Six or seven hours ago, before falling asleep, I watched five or ten minutes of a movie in which Tom Waits appears from time to time. It was a relatively old movie from 1987 set in the 1930s, and Tom Waits had a small role there.

That's probably why his songs kept playing hours after the movie was over. The Auto-play was on, of course.

The song that entered or, quite probably, induced the forming of the dream is part of an album with the simple name "Alice."

Today, I mean, right now, I learned from the Internet that most of the songs on Alice were written for a homonymous play. Some songs convey a wonderful vintage cabaret atmosphere perfectly. Most of the music here can transport you to some old dusty place filled with stuff you stored in the deepest pockets of your memory and then forgot.

When the album came out, in 2002, I bought it in one of the last two or three CD stores in the city.

youtube.com/watch?v=bu9b-mfAfn8&list=PLjlS6IZUVGk6SZsctcxKp0ZPIGtHiR1Lx&index=14

Some of my most cozy memories of that time have a lot to do with listening to this music while driving at night.

One of the "songs" is a piece of talking that flows like your favorite late-night drink, magically backed by the music.

Some of the songs spice the album with a bit of surreal and grotesque.

Some are emotional in a more direct way that anyone can easily relate to.

I didn't know much English in 2002 so I learned to fully appreciate the lyrics only much later.
This song, for example, I used to play from my car pretty loud, like those rude dudes that pump some electronic music nowadays, often from some very slick machines.
I used to park the car in the harbor and listen to the song just becouse it mentions a harbor. I was never alone on those occasions, and having something one could get slightly drunk or stoned with was obligatory.

Alice is a dreamy album. Maybe that's why the music infiltrated my dream in such an organic way.

AND THAT'S IT. MY MIDNIGHT POST IS OVER. IT TOOK ME HOURS TO RE-VISIT SOME SONGS, RECONSTRUCT SOME MEMORIES, AND FINISH THIS THING BEFORE THE DAWN.

AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE SIMPLE ARTWORK IS MY WORK. I DREW IT IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE IN PHOTOSHOP AND ADDED IT FIVE MINUTES AFTER PUBLISHING THE POST BECOUSE THE POST DIDN'T LOOK RIGHT WITHOUT AT LEAST A BIT OF MY OWN VISUALS. IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE MY POST TO ME SO I HAD TO DO SOMETHING TO PRESERVE MY FRAGILE ONLINE IDENTITY.