In Dreams

Orbison wrote it alone, published by Acuff-Rose on February 13, 1963, and recorded it on January 4, 1963 at RCA Victor Studio B in Nashville with Fred Foster producing. The single, with "Shahdaroba" on the B-side, runs 2:48; the album lists 2:51. Wikipedia names no musicians; a listing we saw only in a search summary credits Ray Edenton, Harold Bradley, Floyd Cramer and Bob Moore, which we leave unconfirmed. Orbison said it came to him half-asleep and he wrote it the next morning in about 20 minutes; American Songwriter adds that he dreamed of a radio playing a new Elvis Presley hit he could not recall on waking.

The structure is through-composed in seven movements with no repeated section. It opens lullaby-like with minimal acoustic guitar and half-spoken narration, then drums, piano and breathy backing singers enter, strings counter the melody, and the climax in falsetto resolves an octave lower. It reached 7 on the Hot 100 (13 weeks, 49 on the year-end), 6 in the UK, 1 in Ireland and 7 in Canada; royorbison.com says it was number one in Australia. NPR's Robert Goldstein praised its tormented narrative and ranchera-influenced sound, and Rolling Stone ranks it 319 on its 500 greatest songs.

David Lynch used it in Blue Velvet (1986), where Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth is obsessed with it and Dean Stockwell lip-syncs it with a trouble light as microphone. Wikipedia says Orbison was initially upset the film used it without authorization and later came to appreciate it; scholar Katherine Reed writes that he fought against its inclusion. Tiny Mix Tapes said in the film it becomes an unshakable threat rather than a sweet ode to perpetual love. Orbison re-recorded it for In Dreams: The Greatest Hits (Virgin, May 28, 1987), with T Bone Burnett and Lynch; one Wikipedia page dates that to January 1986 and another to April 1987. Bono, inspired by it via the Blue Velvet soundtrack, led to "She's a Mystery to Me" for Mystery Girl.

Later use includes the game Alan Wake (2010) and the series Wednesday (2022). Covers include Vince Hill (1966), the Underground Youth and Laura Carbone (2021) and Xiu Xiu. In A Black and White Night it sits between "Leah" and "It's Over". We do not know which version our upload is; the 1963 original is the default assumption.