Have you ever had a fantastic, life-changing dream with all the potential in the world to make you, wildly successful, immensely popular, fabulously rich, and a dark horse entry for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, only to have it evaporate the moment you open your eyes? That’s basically the theme of Layne Greene’s new single, “Prospects,” except that, all the more annoyingly, it’s the details of perfectly ordinary things just slipping away, back into the ether.
For several months, Layne Greene was experiencing a series of recurring dreams, featuring a regular cast of characters, both real and fictional—people he hadn’t seen in ages or characters from books read long ago, but all very familiar in their own way. At least, he assumes so. Despite the crystal clarity of his dreams, as soon as he would wake up their names and faces would be gone.
“‘Prospects’ is about those moments of trying to hang on to the memories, whether trying to remember what the book was, or where I knew the person from,” says Greene. “I tried to flip the perspective a bit so that I was writing from the perspective of a fading memory.”
Conveniently, this dream comes with a soundtrack, complete with a ripping good guitar solo.
“Prospects” is also the latest song in what Greene has intended to be a series, with a goal or release one single every three months, though he admits he has, perhaps, been missing the boat on that a bit lately. It’s still a fair-sized undertaking, considering he’s attempting to do everything himself and given the context of the year we’ve all experienced.
However, Greene says past experiences have given him mentors to look to and he often finds himself asking WWDMD: “What Would Dale Murray Do?”
“I had never played drums or bass before, and there were definitely some long nights trying to get takes good enough to use. I definitely leaned heavily on things I’ve learned watching Dale work on the last two records, and on tricks and tips I have seen other friends use over the years,” says Greene.
“Overall, I’m fairly happy with how this one turned out, but am excited to see what happens with the next one!”
We should be seeing Greene’s next single release three months from now, if everything keeps going to schedule. Then again, it’s possible that we might wake up one day and forget all about it…