2025-Feb-22 - Daydream
This week's randomly selected song Daydream is track #2 from disc #1 of my triple CD album It Was All Just a Dream.
Daydream first appeared on my unreleased 1998 album Kosmos as an all-synthesizer song. I reworked the song to feature guitars playing all of the melodies for my 2016 album Legacy. The final version of the song on It Was All Just A Dream features an even more guitar-focused interpretation of the song. While the melodies from the original version of the song are still present, the final version otherwise has very little resemblance to that original version from 1998.
The inspiration for the song is pretty simple: I've always been a daydreamer. This song is a soundtrack to a daydream. With that in mind, I focused on creating flowing melodic lines that danced the lines between hopefulness, fantasy, and perhaps even a touch of melancholy. And beneath the melodies, I used chord sequences that evoked whimsy and perhaps even a touch of cinema soundtrack – my daydreams are often like movies in my mind, so it always made perfrect sense to me that a song about daydreams would be somewhat of a mini movie soundtrack.
The Music Theory Behind the Song
This song is pretty harmonically straight-forward throughout the intro, verses, and choruses. It uses pretty common chord progressions in the key of B minor. Where things take a slightly less conventional turn is when we arrive at the bridge (2:08). This bridge section is a new addition to the song, replacing the original bridge. The bridge features an arpeggio pattern that repeats 4 times. The guitar plays Bsus2 → B7sus4 → Gmaj7#11 → Gadd#11, and for the first two times through the pattern, the bass stays on the note B, which winds up the tension quite a bit. The second two times through the pattern the bass alternates from B to G, following the chords.
The bridge leads into a quiet ambient guitar plus piano section (2:50). This section features a fairly unconventional chord progression: Bm → F → Am → G → Bm → D → F#m → C. While the F and C chords don't fit in the key of B minor, the tension from these borrowed chords create a cinematic vibe.
The guitar solo starts at 3:25 and the chord progression behind the solo is a repeating cycle of the first four chords from the previous section: Bm → F → Am → G. The song ends with a double-length chorus, followed by a return to the guitar riff from the song intro. The second time through the double chorus (4:23), I play an additional short guitar solo over the chorus chord progression.
Guitars and Amps
 2021 Fender Player Plus Telecaster |
 2021 Sully Guitars US Custom 622 |
 1991 Ibanez 540R |
I used three guitars for Daydream. I played the rhythm guitar parts on my Fender Telecaster and Sully Guitars Custom 622, both played through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 Fat voice. For the clean ambient guitar part following the bridge, I played my Ibanez 540R through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 Fat voice. I played all of the lead parts, including the guitar solos on my Sully Guitars Custom 622 through my Mesa Boogie Mark VII using the Fat, VII, and IIC+ voices.
If you love what you hear and want to support the music I make, please consider purchasing It Was All Just a Dream on CD or digital download. I will gladly personalize and autograph your copy.
https://chrisstark.com/it-was-all-just-a-dream
Keep an eye out for next Saturday's song spotlight, and as always, thank you sincerely for all of your support!
Love, Aloha, and Rock!
❤️😎🎸