I Can't Remember The Dream

Official music video for "I Can't Remember The Dream"

Screenshot

Artwork for "I Can't Remember The Dream"

Trivia/Info

• This song and its music video, directed by Alex Italics, were released on August 10, 2021, alongside the release date/tracklist announcement for BOOK.
• According to Italics in a reddit AMA, the music video was conceived, produced and released in a period of two and a half weeks. Italics and Flansburgh met in LA in late July 2021 to determine a concept for the video:

One of the images John initially brought to the table was the destruction of a trophy engraved with the words “Best Rock Video.” I was initially taken with this imagery for two reasons: (1) it’s a sentiment that is clearly in the “stop rock video” TMBG wheelhouse, and (2) I found it to be a hilariously both simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating meta visual.

• The lyrics of this song were released in March 2021 in a video posted to Facebook showing a preview of BOOK's book.
• John Linnell describing the song in a 2021 interview: ^[1]

The lyric is actually one of the more straightforward ones, I think. Just very much explaining a situation some of us are familiar with. It also employs a somewhat familiar-sounding rhythm track that's kind of in the tradition of "Louie Louie" and "Sweet Jane" and things like that, where there's a rhythmic guitar part.

• An alternate recording of the song was released in 2022, featuring John Linnell on banjo, and a completely different drum part.

Song Themes

Dreams, Everything, Forgetting And Remembering, Plants, Questions, Sadness, The Senses, Sleep, Writing

Videos

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