In Dreams
During the Cold War period, the popular music and mass culture were to produce a sedative effect, somewhat easy painkillers to divert people from their deep traumas. Babyboomers consumed new types of dance entertaining music and its representation (rock'nroll related records and shows usually encouraging sexual emancipation), which, in means of culture, presupposed a transition between a pre-war puritan mass culture with moral and civil imperatives to hippies free happenings. Thus, on one hand, there was a high level of anxiety and paranoia, a fear of Nuclear war with communist Russia (this spectrum of experience was mainly expressed in culture by more complex and intellectual art fields like avantgarde jazz or Film Noir movement in cinematography) -- on the other hand, there was a growing realm of mass culture with happy smiling beautiful celebrities, which sang about love affairs and personal experiences: a culture, which was trying to persuade a listener that everything is alright, and there is nothing to worry about, just chill and dance (pop music and TV were responsible for this options).
However, we should admit that the pop music was not so plain at that time, and there were different types within it. Talking about pop culture, we should consider all the roots of it in the USA such as blues, country, folk. All these genres were later developed and continued in subgenres of rock and roll as serf rock, rhythm and blues, soul, rockabilly, types of dance music like lindy hop, hand jive etc. Nevertheless, a text structure in this period mostly remains classic and almost untouched -- rare artists dare to experiment and innovate something in this mode. Most of them copy classical folk or blues narrative structuring with verse repeating with different details added and ending with the chorus line.
In this light, Ray Orbison's tender ballads may seem rather challenging for pop listeners' ears, though his hit In Dreams was commercially successful, highly rated in charts and also was listed in 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song was recorded and released in early 1963 on the Monument Records label, which Orbison collaborated with at that time: it was a 12-track Long Play with Orbison’s image on a cover, with his distinct man-in-black style (all the songs comprise dream thematics). Firstly, In Dreams may seem as a classic quintessential Elvis-style record, but bit by bit we notice that the structure of the song is very unusual. We may divide it into seven parts (we should admit there is no basic verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus structure), that do not repeat, but in some way gradually ascending: "The song is more like an operatic aria, featuring seven separate sections, each with a different tune, none of them repeated" (Guardian).
It starts with almost spoken words and whisperings (not singing in a strict sense) accompanied by soft guitar chords, "A candy-colored clown they call the sandman, Tiptoes to my room every night.." (Orbison) -- Orbison makes somewhat theatrical intro, he invites the listeners to enter his imaginary world and calm down, "Go to sleep, everything is alright" (Orbison). After this, the orchestra and band begin to play and a core verse narrating about his dream starts. To convey a dream ("I close my eyes then I drift away" (Orbison)) and make the piece more surreal, Orbison uses somewhat psychedelic techniques: "the arrangement adds layers as it progresses, the rattling drums getting complemented by soaring strings and then choir backup vocals" (Allmusic). In this part, Orbison also declares how the girl he loves is his, but only in dreams: "In dreams, I walk with you, In dreams, I talk to you, In dreams, you're mine all the time" (Orbison). After that, "there's a somewhat more troubled part in which he wakens to reality" (Allmusic): in some way, Orbison's song is a sound design to cover his narrative, every part of each he highlights differently (when the dream interrupts, it is depicted with the sound sources more than it is in lyrics; when we witness a despair in a narrative, Orbison starts to sing in a higher octave, "I awake and find you gone" (Orbison). Thus, the song starts with spoken words and ends with almost falsetto. This conceptual approach helps to convey a degree of a protagonist's despair and a gap between "beautiful dreams" and reality. For the protagonist, it would be better to live in dreams than to bare a reality without his beloved.
In his mystery magnum opus Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch uses In Dreams in an astonishing and rather controversial way: to shadow and mute the violent scenes of torture and aggression. A psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) is addicted to the song, however, it is not clear how it affects him. Obviously, it covers all the complex spectrum of his deepest feelings: anxiety, paranoia, fits of anger. Frank's marginal behaviour may be the result of a traumatic loss (his despair is close to insanity) and the song is usually used to calm him down. While listening, Frank may burst into tears, or he may start violent acts: Dennis Hopper's face expresses such a wide range of emotions during the song, that it is clear Frank is on his existential edge, his in a trans.
It is noticed by many, that in comparison to Presley, Orbison was almost motionless during the shows, nevertheless, many artists, who were in the same line-up on collaborative shows (e.g. Beatles), found it difficult to perform after the dozen Roy Orbison's dramatic encores.
Works Cited
Hoggart, Simon. Old music: Roy Orbison – In Dreams. The Guardian, 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
Orbison, Roy. In Dreams Lyrics. Azlyrics, 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
Unterberger, Richie. In Dreams Song review. Allmusic. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
