The Ignition Lab is a group songwriting challenge to write a song a week in 2013, using weekly word prompts as a starting point. Follow our work on Facebook: facebook.com/TheIgnitionLab
The word prompt for this week was GUILT. In fact, I felt a little guilty that it’s a full week late, but I had been traveling to the west coast. I had good intentions to compose and publish from there, (hey, I had my iPad with GarageBand on it!) but alas, going around town with baby in tow left me with evenings booked only for sleep.
Given those circumstances, I decided to write a dreamy song about indulgence. I thought about a handful of guilty pleasures and selected a few to make an appearance in this song. I think if I were to perform this song live, I would probably modify the song each time to match whatever guilty pleasure strikes my fancy that week.
When I think of songs with dream-like states, I feel like they have to be in 3–a waltz. In the spirit of keeping things simple (and quick), I toyed around with going from the 1 to the 4 chord, and lingered there for a while (as I thought of indulgent things and wrote those down), then went on a descending baseline for the chorus which somehow felt more dream-like.
It’s simple and sweet, and not very serious. Lyrics below. Enjoy.
Perfect Dream
If I could float on a cloud
I would
I’d soar like a bird through the air
If I could
Dive down below
And sing wherever I go
Head for the town
Go around and around
Indulge me here as I paint this scene
Gonna play around in my perfect dream
If I could eat all the ice cream in the world
I would
I’d chase it with thousands of chocolates
If I could
Bask in delight
As I take in the sight, of
Cookies and cream
What a dream, what a dream!
Indulge me here as I paint this scene
Gonna play around in my perfect dream
Oh what fun it is to get lost in this
To swirl around in momentary bliss