The interesting thing about this album is how at least half the songs can stand alone as summaries of the whole album, made from different perspectives. As this is the album's title track, it's no surprise when that happens here. The unique take of this song is that it's sort of an invokation of the muse at the opening of the album (the first three lines), after which the problem and approach are laid out in relatively simple terms (for a Live song):
'I've gone to church, I've said my prayers, but I still feel empty. I don't feel there's anything more to my life than what I see in the physical world. But then I found something else... maybe I already have access to the "something sweeter" I'm seeking...'
Musically, the song builds tension and expectation, leaving us ready to hear in the rest of the album a detailed account of the resolution of the problem this song presents. Notice that verse 2 ends with us learning that he's had a vision, but we don't get to find out what he learned from the vision. The speaker's dilemma returns in the chorus, but there is more resolve/hope that he will find an answer... or maybe he already has one? After the chorus, he sings a shortened 2-line verse, "this distance is dreaming,/ we're already there tonight." If this song is a linear narrative, then the rest of the album occurs during the second chorus and is obscured by it, and the last half-verse is cryptic precisely because the words it uses to explain the resolution to the song's previous dilemma are not explained in this song, but elsewhere. "Dream" is a sort of illusion or blindness -- so he has realized that the distance doesn't really exist, except as the very blindness that keeps you from seeing that there is no distance. We are already there (in a place offering spiritual fulfillment).
The interesting thing about this album is how at least half the songs can stand alone as summaries of the whole album, made from different perspectives. As this is the album's title track, it's no surprise when that happens here. The unique take of this song is that it's sort of an invokation of the muse at the opening of the album (the first three lines), after which the problem and approach are laid out in relatively simple terms (for a Live song):
'I've gone to church, I've said my prayers, but I still feel empty. I don't feel there's anything more to my life than what I see in the physical world. But then I found something else... maybe I already have access to the "something sweeter" I'm seeking...'
Musically, the song builds tension and expectation, leaving us ready to hear in the rest of the album a detailed account of the resolution of the problem this song presents. Notice that verse 2 ends with us learning that he's had a vision, but we don't get to find out what he learned from the vision. The speaker's dilemma returns in the chorus, but there is more resolve/hope that he will find an answer... or maybe he already has one? After the chorus, he sings a shortened 2-line verse, "this distance is dreaming,/ we're already there tonight." If this song is a linear narrative, then the rest of the album occurs during the second chorus and is obscured by it, and the last half-verse is cryptic precisely because the words it uses to explain the resolution to the song's previous dilemma are not explained in this song, but elsewhere. "Dream" is a sort of illusion or blindness -- so he has realized that the distance doesn't really exist, except as the very blindness that keeps you from seeing that there is no distance. We are already there (in a place offering spiritual fulfillment).