Strange little tunes sometimes invade the brain in either the early middle or tail end of night. I know the latter is the lightest REM sleep cycle part of the night. The former is the deepest. But in reality, my nighttime psychology tells me that during any time of the darkness hours, it dictates that difficult song captures are involved. Whisper singing, or whistling, into the iPad is paramount…in order that not one living entity on this Green Earth is awoken by my warbling. Or wind whistling. Just before dawn? If it awakens the tiniest of the sleepyhead population from light slumber, I can almost feel guilt free. Yet still I bend my head down to get as close to the inherent iPad microphone as possible in order to keep singing, whistling, humming and guitar volume to a minimum.

So best practice? At 05.30, when a dream song visiting alarm pings the eyelids open, is my preferred scenario. Even to the point where I lose myself and volume of guitar strum heightens. Excitement, when you are capturing a dream song, is addictive. But two closed doors between myself and my sleeping wife are in place. Bedroom and The Den doors of heavy Victorian Scandinavian Pine are Godsends. On waking? I am driven. From frost crusted closed eyelids opening to the gentle invasive outside slowly developing light there exists in this World a madly driven songwriter. And at 05.30, when driven by summer’s seasonal timetable of longest to now shorter days of light, no darkness exists outside the window. In this breaking soft light I stagger to The Den to capture the gift of a tune.

Any time of night though provides that neurological shout of ‘Hey Man….wake yourself up from dream state, because you have the song of all songs’. The reality is? That same day’s later revisit to the ‘Nirvana Song of all Songs’ says to me:

‘Summers! Get real. You dreamt a misnomer. It was a ditty song at best’.

I nod in acquiescence. And yet, a finger prods and then points at me.

‘Oy!’ it poke states…’You believed your dream enough to crawl up from deep slumber to awakened reality. This song was sent to you by the Angels that exist in your deep insightful dream World. This song actually worked within the ‘Dreamscape Orchestra of the Mind’. So get to grips and go re-capture it’.

So getting up out of the bed with purpose must have meant something good existed. Something magikal floating in the mind and the urgent need to chase it down for capture.

After that Dreamscape wake up call? I hit The Den room of technical equipment, with its musical and instrumental opportunities. I clutch sleepily at the woken up iPad, find and hit the Shure MOTIV audio app, look for the red record button and, before finger tapping it, listen intently to the World’s surroundings. All is quiet. ‘Shush’ my whole being says. Am I invading other’s gentle last of their nighttime ablutions before their soon to be wake up alarms? Am I disturbing others’ needs to remain in a state of sleep needed tail end circadian rhythms. The particular rhythms that supply their necessary hormones and inherent chemical production to balance their body functions properly? Probably. So…I find an immediate need to whisper sing, wind whistle or gently strum play an unplugged electric guitar, (that means without an amp because it is far quieter than an acoustic guitar volume) and quietly strum. Why the need for guitar? I have to realistically capture chords thought out in my dream too. All these considerations in not disturbing the larger World at sleep fight with the desperate need to just get on with this activity and get the tune cemented and alive in hard copy land.

In my immediate vicinity? I have a sleeping, has had a hard day at work, wife to consider. So it is a case of laying down ideas performed to their basic, unrealistic result from their dream status level. What comes out of my mouth does not, in any shape or form, result in what my dreamscape mind was perceiving. The guitar? Simply strummed to a basic ‘Less is Best’. But….it has to do. A little capture in a moment of time that, in some small way, cements the next hopeful song.

Here below are some middle to end of night, nearly daytime, excursions from a whole library of middle night tunes. And yes…all of these below are developing subsequently as one single song alongside, quite nicely, the Summers’ brain’s neural synapses. So there are similarities in the totality of all three because I think I missed something important. In reality, they all are similar. They may crash down to one song, but a little subtle change can be important. Catch the vibe, and change the dynamic. Played louder during the day to develop possibilities. These below? Parts probably exist in finished songs now recorded. Thinking about it, the short song ‘A Million with Shotguns’ ditty has bits of these melodies in it. These four same continual ideas here show some promise to expand more.

Lyrics? They don’t exist in dreamland songs. Within the mind’s recesses there exists the simplicity of getting to grips with a musical identity of melody. And maybe, just maybe, a daytime considered lyrical song can develop from out of the visiting sleeping weirdness.

If you, yourself, are a songwriter….you may understand this explanation of how the songwriter’s mind works.

If so, an open arms and magikal welcome to you songwriter’s all. Welcome to my own, and your own, weirdness of the dreamscape musical World.

And maybe a single important song could be realised over our different songwriter awakenings during the weirdness of nighttime deliveries…..

So, another comparison again. During the day? Yes. Different story……loud as needed into the Apple Mac M2 home studio singing and playing acoustic guitar through the Shure SM58 microphone. Very different quality to the iPad examples above.