The Making of "But When I Know Who I Am"

Lyrics inspired by a dream from 11/30/2020

Music inspired by 2 dreams from 12/9/2019 and 9/30/2020

Written December 2020/March 2021

This song was inspired by a dream where I saw a boy from my elementary school (who inexplicably appears in my dreams a lot) as if we’d gone to the same school again. In some strange dream situation, I’d come back from the future to prevent him from dying. He was sitting in a small, empty room in the school, and I knew that he was going to stay there forever and die if I didn’t help him. I couldn’t think of anything to tell him to make him leave except to make a false love confession. He jumped up and started following me around school as I was just doing a bunch of people’s errands. 

The two lines that came from dreams were “And the blood came rush before me, / But we always knew our lines” and “But when I know who I am / There are so many things to add”. These are obviously both lines packed with meaning... I carefully found a way to weave them into the narrative about the boy from elementary school. The title lyric of the song was heard in a dream in which I was listening to one of my favorite albums from my early teen days, Sondre Lerche’s Heartbeat Radio. However, I later realized that the song he was singing was not real... even though it sounded extremely similar to that album’s style. 

I set out to make something as similar to Heartbeat Radio as I could. My friend Tobias makes electronic music that I really admire, under the name Carndye. I showed him “I Cannot Let You Go” by Sondre Lerche, along with my demo. In two amazingly creative sessions, we crafted the instrumental for the song that somehow turned out exactly how I wanted it.