Dreams occur mainly in the rapid-eye movement stage of sleep. During REM, your brain activity is high, which can trick you into thinking you are awake. A succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations involuntarily occur as you move through different stages of sleep. Throughout history, dreams have been the topic of scientific, philosophical, and even religious studies. Interpretation of your dreams can differ wildly from person to person.
We do not know from what part of the human brain dreams originate, nor do we know the purpose of dreams. We all have them, but we don’t all remember them. Long ago, in writings from Egypt, it was documented that people experienced “dream visitors,” where a deity or prominent figure would command the dreamer to take specific actions, affecting the future. Let’s take a look at the story behind “In Another Land” by The Rolling Stones.
Awakening from One Dream to Discover You’re in Another
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the bulk of the original songs for The Rolling Stones. Bassist Bill Wyman wrote “In Another Land” on the organ at his house and made a demo on his home tape recorder. While Jagger and Richards were standing trial for drug charges, the band was worried about their future. Guitarist Brian Jones was becoming less and less reliable as he was drifting further away from the band. Wyman went to Olympic Studios in London for a recording session, but Jagger, Richards, and Jones were nowhere to be found.
Wyman recounted in his 1990 memoir Stone Alone, “I drove to Barnes on 13 July to attend a recording session with the Stones at Olympic with Glyn Johns as engineer. Nobody else turned up except [drummer] Charlie [Watts] and pianist Nicky Hopkins. We were thinking of leaving when Glyn said to me, ‘Do you have a song to do?’ I sat at the piano and played ‘In Another Land,’ and they all liked it. We worked on putting a basic track together and got a good master on tape. It then came time to add the vocals, which worried me. In the end I suggested tremolo on my voice.”
In another land where the breeze and the
Trees and flowers were blue
I stood and held your hand.
And the grass grew high, and the feathers floated by
I stood and held your hand
And nobody else’s hand will ever do
Nobody else will do
Then I awoke
Was this some kind of joke
Much to my surprise
I opened my eyes
The Small Faces
The lineup on the recording included Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott of The Small Faces, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Charlie Watts on drums. Later, Jagger overdubbed background vocals, Richards added acoustic guitar and backing vocals, and Jones added mellotron. Said Wyman, “The Small Faces were recording next door, and Glyn asked [guitarist] Steve Marriott to come in and help me. We sang it together, and it worked well. The track was given the working title ‘Acid in the Grass.’
“Next night, Glyn told Mick and Keith about my session and played them what we’d done,” he continued. “They liked it, agreeing it was compatible with the rest of the tracks. I’d finally broken the songwriting stranglehold of Mick and Keith.”
We walked across the sand and the sea and
The sky and the castles were blue.
I stood and held your hand.
And the spray flew high, and the feathers floated by
I stood and held your hand
And nobody else’s hand will ever do
Nobody else will do
Then I awoke
Was this some kind of joke
Much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
The Future of the Band
Wyman contemplated the band’s future, wondering how long they could keep it up. “It’s amusing to recall what I said when asked if we would ever go on tour again: ‘It could happen—but it’s such a drag now,’” he recalled. “It’s all right leaping about the stage when you’re 20, but when you get to 25 or 26, it gets a bit embarrassing. Mick feels he is old enough to get into something new now. I know Charlie couldn’t care less, but if Mick and Keith suddenly decided on something, I suppose we would do it. The other trouble is that the people we play to now are not really our audience. Our fans have got married and turned into a record-buying public rather than one which goes to stage shows.”
We heard the trumpets blow, and the sky
Turned red when I accidentally said
That I didn’t know how I came to be here
Not fast asleep in bed.
I stood and held your hand
And nobody else’s hand will ever do
Nobody else’s hand
Then I awoke
Was this some kind of joke
I opened my eyes
Much to my surprise
A Real Snore
When The Rolling Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request, they not only included Wyman’s song, it was the lead single. “The Lantern,” a Jagger/Richards song, was on the B-side. The A-side was credited to Bill Wyman, who continued, “‘Wyman goes solo,’ said Billboard magazine, ‘in the offbeat piece of rock ballad material that should prove a monster … a weirdy that can’t miss.’ It didn’t do too badly and achieved a highest position of 64. No promotion had been done on this record.”
A few weeks later, The Rolling Stones released “She’s a Rainbow,” which fared much better on the charts, basically killing any momentum “In Another Land” had built. On the album, you can hear the bass player snoring after Wyman’s song ends. One night, he fell asleep in the recording studio, and Jagger and Richards recorded him. They tacked it onto the end of the song. Wyman was not aware of it until he heard the finished album. The snoring did not appear on the single.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Photo by Bill Orchard/Shutterstock
Most Popular
Comments / 0