Dreamland
by Pet Shop Boys featuring Years & Years
Writers - Lowe/Tennant/Alexander
First released - 2019
Original album - Hotspot
Producer - Stuart Price
Subsequent albums - Smash
Other releases - single (US Dance #6; didn't appear on the overall UK singles chart but hit #1 for UK physical sales)
"Dreamland" was the first single from the Pet Shop Boys' album Hotspot. It's a collaboration with the British band Years & Years, co-written with that band's lead singer Olly Alexander. As stated in a press release for the single, "The song was written in London and produced by Stuart Price at Hansa Studios in Berlin and The Record Plant in Los Angeles."
It was first discussed publicly in May 2017 and was originally slated to appear on the next Years & Years album. But when that album (Palo Santo) was released in July 2018, it wasn't included, possibly because it doesn't fit with the album's underlying concept, which concerns what has been described as "a genderless dystopian society populated by androids." "It is still being decided who will take that one," Alexander said of the song to interviewer James Wilson-Taylor, waffling on whether it would eventually emerge as a recording by his own band, by the Pet Shop Boys, or by a third party altogether. "I'm sure you'll hear it," he affirmed, but quickly added, "One day." But nothing further was heard about it until nearly a full year later, in April 2019, when Neil and Chris noted on their official website that they were "back in the studio" with Alexander. They were apparently working once again on the song, preparing it for release. As it turned out, the "one day" that Alexander had earlier alluded to arrived on September 11, 2019, when the Boys offered its world premiere on Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 morning show.
According to Alexander, the lyrics of the song were inspired by an amusement park named Dreamland in the coastal town of Margate in southeastern England. They offer what he describes as "a subversive political statement," with Neil telling him that it "makes sense right now with [U.S. President Donald] Trump closing the borders." Neil encouraged him to make the lyrics even "more direct." It would be a mistake, however, to tie the song's sentiments exclusively to Trump and circumstances in the States. After all, the song's narrator sings, "I'm so tired of my homeland." The fact that these words were written by a native British citizen (two if you count Neil), not to mention the Brexit controversy in Britain and the rising anti-immigrant sentiments there as well, calls for a more "extended" reading of the song.
It's easy to see the connections, as the lyrics express a wistful longing for something that seems increasingly unavailable in the U.S./U.K. sociopolitical climate: "a dreamland in another world far away.… a free land [where] they welcome everyone to stay." The narrator goes on to describe this dreamland as "a kind of amnesia where all problems seem to disappear." Pointedly, he points out that "you don't need a visa" to go there. In other words, governments and politics have no sway over one's personal freedom to come and go. "I don't wanna wake up," he repeatedly sings, displaying his clear preference for this imaginary, ideal world—which he says that he loves—as compared to the real one.
The lyrics also invite an alternate reading that have nothing to do with sociopolitical concerns. This is especially true if you regard the "you" being addressed by the narrator as not being the "dreamland" itself but rather as a lover. If he is indeed singing to a lover, then such lines as "You got to take me / You got to make me" become the narrator's pleas to that lover to take him away to a "dreamland" of eternal love where they can find themselves "staying forever, leaving all our worries behind." In this case, of course, when the narrator says, "I love you," he's not saying it to the dreamland itself but rather to his lover. The fact that the song is performed as a duet between two openly gay men adds further poignance to this interpretation.
Meanwhile, the poppy, highly energetic music had originated with a track Chris had already composed even before the prospect of collaborating with Alexander had come up. He had tentatively called it "Anno Domini" (Latin for "In the year of the Lord"), though he concedes, "I don't know why it was called that." Opening with a triumphal synth-trumpet fanfare that subsequently recurs throughout the track, the song finds Neil and Olly trading vocal lines of the verses, while they duet on the chorus. Short, concise, and vibrant—a latter-day take on the classic PSB sound—it has "hit single" written all over it.
Annotations
- Despite the composers' professed "subversive political statement" in the song, it also readily lends itself to a more literal interpretation that actually may have served as the jumping-off point for other meanings. As one of my regular site visitors has pointed out, Margate has been a depressed town in which the Dreamland amusement park had been shut down. But it has recently reopened as part of the town's redevelopment, and has proved extremely popular with local residents. It therefore has provided the town with both an economic and a psychological boost. As it turns out, the music video for the single "A New Bohemia" from the Pet Shop Boys' next album, Nonetheless would be shot in and near the Dreamland amusement park in Margate.
- It has been suggested that the line "In a garden where the sun still shines" might allude, at least as a "cultural echo," to the biblical Garden of Eden. But in a more literal sense it may refer to the fact that the Dreamland theme park lies in the county of Kent, which is popularly known as "The garden of England." And it is in fact one of the warmest, sunniest parts of the country, enjoying well above the national average monthly mean hours of sunshine.
- "You can come and go and still be here" – In Annually 2020, Neil says that he loves this line "because it's completely meaningless, but I sort of know what it means." At least to this commentator's ears, however, it doesn't seem completely meaningless at all. On the contrary, it suggests that this "Dreamland" is a place that stays with you even when you're not there physically. From that perspective, maybe "Dreamland" is more a state of mind than anything else.
- "Sleep is a river" – This clause in the lyrics may have been borrowed from the song "John O'Dreams," which is commonly thought of as a traditional Irish folk-lullaby, but is actually an original composition, albeit in an Irish folk style, with lyrics by English folksinger Bill Caddick and a melody borrowed from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, "The Pathetique." It first appeared (as "John of Dreams") on the 1980 compilation album High Kings of Tara in a rendition by Irish folksinger Christy Moore. It quickly gained popularity among folk-music aficionados and was soon covered by a number of other artists, along the way engendering the mistaken notion of it being a traditional Irish folk song. All that being said, it isn't necessarily directly derived from the earlier song in that poets and songwriters have long dallied with similar concepts of sleep being akin to a river. So Olly Alexander may have independently composed this line without having knowingly borrowed it from the older song. Without confirmation one way or the other, we can only say for certainty that it's not wholly "original" and leave it at that.
Mixes/versions
Officially released- Mixer: Stuart Price
- Single/album version (3:28)
- TWD vocal remix (5:06)
- TWD dub (4:58)
- Instrumental (3:28)
- Mixers: Pet Shop Boys
- PSB remix (4:41)
- Mixer: Jacques Renault
- Jacques Renault remix (5:45)
Official but unreleased
- Mixer: Full Intention (Michael Gray and Jon Pearn)
- Full Intention Classic Remix (7:14)
- Full Intention Classic Edit (3:24)
- Full Intention Classic Dub (5:56)
- Full Intention Classic Instrumental (3:24)
- Mixer: Casey Alva
- Casey Alva Vocal Mix (6:24)
- Casey Alva Dub (6:24)
- Mixer: DJLW (Lynn Wood)
- DJLW Remix (4:14)
- The Full Intention, Casey Alva, and DJLW remixes were distributed only to U.S. dance clubs and DJs
- DJLW Remix (4:14)
List cross-references
- Artists with whom PSB have collaborated
- Real places mentioned by name in PSB songs
- PSB songs that have been used in films and "non-musical" TV shows
- How PSB singles differ (if at all) from the album versions
- What it's about: Neil's succinct statements on what a song is "about"
- Early titles of Pet Shop Boys songs
- Nods to PSB history in the "A New Bohemia" video
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