“Dreams Old Men Dream” by the Cold War Kids

Through what kaleidoscope of memory does an aging mind perceive the world? Does each change of light conjure some long lost scene? In the lyrics to “Dreams Old Men Dream” by Cold War Kids, a day spent digging hands in the garden recalls a dream spent shooting flairs off a deserted island. Dreams meld with reality.

Likewise, my late grandfather’s mind, now clear, now full of static, would cut in and out between English and Spanish like a radio tuned between overlapping stations. Thoughts detached from linear time. Every present moment, layered with every second of the past, would incite the faint echos of love or loss or youth. The singer in “Dreams Old Men Dream” does not, unfortunately, take this reminiscence as well as my grandfather did:

Thought I was built like a building’s built
Iron, concrete and stone
I realize I’m just a hack actor
Finished playing my role
…
Thought I was writing for a hundred hours
Looking straight into me
But I was reading on the newspaper
Obituaries

Aware of the body’s frailty and mind’s dissipation as mortality inches closer, the singer relates these disorienting episodes of age through lyric-driven verses. But exposition gives way to song. The unresolved instrumentation breathes into melody when, while thinking of a lover of 30 years who may or may not be alive, the singer reaches the chorus:

Cold War Kids (Credit: Wikipedia)

You’re reading my thoughts
Dreams old men dream
It’s just like when we were kids
We’d lay around wondering
We try to listen to what they say

The high tremolo of the reverberating guitar builds a spacious atmosphere that evokes a sense of distance—of years far gone and of dreams once had. Compared to the tense verses, in the chorus love comes flying down, enriches the moment, gives way to nostalgia and beauty. Does the speaker merely recall his youth to his lover, or does his lover, no longer in this world, visit him only in dream? Given the end of song, when the singer acts with the abandon one might associate with grief, I wonder if it’s the latter:

Push my piano outside
I don’t care, I don’t care
Beneath the meteor black sky
I don’t care, I don’t care

The neighbours will complain
Let them stare, let them stare
Who knows where the time goes?
I don’t care, I don’t care

Read the full Cold War Kids lyrics here.

More from Rite of Passage:

• Memorial Service Music: “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie 
• Memorial Music: “Kettering” by The Antlers
• Memorial Songs: “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens