What the Tom Rush Song "The Dreamer" Did For Me.

When I first heard this Tom Rush song "The Dreamer" in 1981 on a public radio show, I literally stopped, sat down on my bed in a cold downtown Chicago dorm room, and wept. I didn't know why at the time. I  was 22, had only been playing banjo for three years, had no music career, and was in a small band that I had formed on campus. But this one song, and its existential message, sent me off onto a journey of  searching for and writing songs that attempt to describe the indescribable nature of life; its beauty and complexities. This song was the small crack of sanity that I needed at the time to survive the enormous doubt that I was experiencing about my path in life. It helped me find the path of music that eventually saved my mind from what all I was giving myself to at the time. In folk music and its messages, I found "the village that saved this idiot" from a sad world view that has been placed into my brain by the fear-ridden darkness of Christian fundamentalism; something very far from the actual teachings of Jesus himself. I lived among mostly frowning fearful students, yet my banjo made some of them, and certainly me, happier during those early years of the insane Moral Majority frenzy. Music eventually saved my mind and life and became what I gave my energy to from that point on.  I graduated never to return to the ministry. Music became a much better path for me, and has remained so over the years, and in many ways is my "ministry" to people, and my way of communicating to others about life.

Tom Rush remains one of the greatest presenters of stories through song that we have ever seen. Like many great folk artists of that time, his career was lived in the shadows of the political and pop sensible type artist of his time ,never really getting the attention they deserved, but what he did will forever be one of the great artist , like my other hero Harry Chapin that represents everything I ever wanted to do on stage in front of a live audience; tell life-affirming stories through song. "The Dreamer" is true beauty and greatness. Enjoy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S04seo8Uwo 

http://tomrush.com/ 

Tom Rush - "The Dreamer" Lyrics

The moon she rides the tattered storm
On a ragged gypsy journey
The snow lies on the mountain
Like a cloak upon a king

My dreams go tumbling with the dust
Out across the valley
Blow above the river
Blow above the sea

And life's a sparrow lost at sea
In dark of night with far to go
Dreams are ships that sailed away
We are only cargo
Only cargo

Now the sea has always sung to me
But I have never never headed
I am born a farmer raised the same
Married to the land

But sometimes I will lie at night
While she is softly sleeping
An' far away I hear the song
The sea sings to the sand

For life's a sparrow lost at sea
In dark of night with far to go
Dreams are ships that sailed away
We are only cargo
Only cargo
Only cargo

Adam's prize was open eyes
His sentence was to see
So day by day he's worn awake
Against reality
So gypsies dream of being king
Kings of being free
A sailor longs to till the land
The farmer sets to sea

And the sea will love the land all night
Like a woman loves her lover
The wind will race along the beach
And make the sea cliffs ring

And I will start to wake and dream again
The dream I dreamed forever
The ships I'll never sail
The songs I'll never sing

Sweet life's a sparrow lost at sea
In dark of night with far to go
Dreams are ships that sailed away
The dreamer's only cargo
Only cargo
Only cargo