Durandatory Duran – Even In Dreams (Wait, That’s a Weezer Song… Wait…)

by Chris McGinty (According To Whim .com)

I’m glad I didn’t have time to post my blog this morning, because I had a neat dream that I feel compelled to post.

There was something doing with my former pizza jobs, but I don’t remember the details. For some reason I left and went to the mall to get something to eat. I’m not a fan of malls, and I rarely go to them, so this was a little surprising. I walked in to Al’s Diner which was run by Ed O’Neil who played Al Bundy. I did understand it in the dream that it was the actor not the character. It looked like a slightly higher class version of the diner he worked in the movie “Wayne’s World,” which if you know me is funny.

My roommates from 2005 had a roommate before me, and I haven’t spoken to her for years except a little bit on Facebook. In the dream she called me, and while I spoke to her I walked out of the restaurant to hear better, and I kept noticing all the people that were going in the restaurant and getting ahead of me. She wanted to know about my teeth in some picture, but I couldn’t tell what picture she was asking about, so I didn’t know hoe to answer.

As a quick side note, I was writing an article last night about my experience trying to design dice games recently, and my experience with game design in general. The last time I messaged her in waking life was to get the rules to Zonk, a dice game, to post to this blog.

Then I saw Duran Duran, and it was the four current members. I told her I would call her back, and walked over to where some people were shaking Duran Duran’s hands. In the dream I had already met them at the show (I went to a show last week in waking life) so I approached them and said hi again and hugged each one of them, except that for some reason I believed that Roger didn’t like to hug, so I shook his hand.

They were getting into their vehicle then, seeming a little impatient by the attention, like that maybe they weren’t entirely expecting it and were running late.

I was trying to remember something, because I remember really wanting to tell Simon something if I ever saw him again. I walked over to the SUV they were driving and backing out. Simon was in the driver’s seat (more in a second) I said, “You know how it is when you have something you want to remember to say to somebody, but when you see them you can’t.” He half assed acknowledged that it does sometimes happen. Then I turned to walk away, and remembered.

I turned back and said, “I remember.” He stepped out of the vehicle as if he didn’t want the others to hear our conversation. I said, “The song “The Promise” – Arcadia…”

I realized it sounded dumb to clarify which band he was in when the song was created, and I worried that the members that weren’t involved in Arcadia might be upset that out of all the songs I wanted to bring up I brought up an Arcadia song, but then realized that John was the only one in the car that wasn’t in Arcadia.

Simon said, “Yeah,” to acknowledge that he knew which song I was talking about.

I said, “I would really love it if you guys wrote another song like that.”

He said, “Well…” as if about to explain why that might not happen.

I interrupted, and said, “I understand that creativity doesn’t work that way, but I figured that by telling you that I would at least get the idea into your subconscious.”

Simon said, “That’s a good idea,” referring to the idea of telling him what I’d like to hear out of hopes that his subconscious would work on it.

I said, “I didn’t realize how deep that song was when I first started listening to it. I was only 12 when that album came out (for some reason I was thinking that was in 1984, which was 12 years after I was born in 1972).

He thanked me for my praise, got back in the SUV and left.

My phone rang and it was my roommate. He sounded like he was stuck at work and bored. He asked my how I was, and I told him my day just got better. He said he would call me later and I could tell him about it.

Then some really cute girl walked up to me wanting to go have lunch with me, but she didn’t actually say anything. I knew by dream knowledge. And that was then end of the dream. It seemed like a sitcom ending in a way, where the cute girl was an uncredited actress who got no lines to speak, and was only there because Hollywood likes romantic endings even if it doesn’t make sense for the characters.

The odd thing was that the song I was actually thinking about (I was remembering the opening riff in the dream) was “Proposition” (fan vid for Proposition) and if I would mistake it for anything on Arcadia’s “So Red the Rose” album, I should have mistaken it for “Goodbye is Forever”.

When Simon got out of the SUV I was worried that the vehicle would drive off, because I hadn’t seen him put it into park. It didn’t go anywhere though. After waking I actually had the thought, what if it was a European car, which whole mean that Nick was driving, John was sitting behind him, and Roger was sitting behind Simon. Discuss. Oh sorry, I thought I was teaching a Psychology class.

While my math was correct that being born in 1972 would make me 12 at my birthday in 1984, “So Red the Rose” didn’t come out until 1985, which still might not be entirely wrong since I was 12 for most of the year in 1985, as I was actually born in 1973. My dream had by birth year wrong, but what I find funny is that from the time I turned 37 last year, I keep thinking I’m 38 for some reason. Even my dream, saying I was born in 1972, seemed to think this.

I wonder which song my subconscious really meant, the one I spoke the title to Simon, or the riff I was hearing in my head. I should probably listen to both.

One final note as I was setting the links for this. I did not actually know there was an official video for “The Promise” how neat. Thanks subconscious. The version of the song for the video is shorter than the album version, and yes that is Sting on backing vocals. There were a lot of studio guests on the album including Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, and I believe that David Gilmour also played on “The Promise.” I knew that “Goodbye Is Forever” had been released as I single, but never heard it before buying the album, and now that I look at it I’ve never seen the video for it either. The video version of the song is also slightly different from the album version.

You’ll note also that only Nick and Simon are featured in the Arcadia videos. Roger had dropped out of the project two songs prior to the completion of “So Red the Rose.” His departure also marked the end of his Duran Duran membership for many years (officially returning for “Astronaut.”)