"In Dreams" was recorded at RCA Studio B in Nashville on January 4, 1963, and released later the same month. "In Dreams" peaked at number 7 on Billboard Hot 100 and spent 13 weeks on the charts in the U.S. Cash Box described it as "a lovely, Joe Tanner ork-choral supported cha cha beat opus." During the five months the song was on the charts, Orbison replaced guitarist Duane Eddy on a tour of the UK alongside the Beatles, whom he was not aware of at the time. British promoters were wary of Orbison as a draw, not considering him conventionally attractive and noting his stillness while performing. On opening night, the audience reacted intensely toward Orbison's ballads, as he finished with "In Dreams". Philip Norman, a Beatles biographer, later wrote "As Orbison performed, chinless and tragic, the Beatles stood in the wings, wondering how they would dare to follow him". After demanding Orbison play for double the time he was scheduled, the audience then screamed for a fifteenth encore, which Lennon and Paul McCartney refused to allow. The two held Orbison back from returning to the stage.
A compilation of Orbison's most successful songs was re-recorded in January 1986 and released in 1987 under the title In Dreams: The Greatest Hits. Its release followed the release of David Lynch's film Blue Velvet, which featured "In Dreams" prominently. Orbison was astonished and at first upset by the use of the song in Blue Velvet. In the film, murderous psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) is obsessed with the song, which he calls "Candy Colored Clown", and demands it be played repeatedly. In one scene it is lip-synced by his crony Ben (Dean Stockwell), making Booth alternately tearful and enraged. Later, Booth threatens Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) and beats him unconscious while the song plays from his car stereo and Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) begs him to stop. Lynch later stated, "it is a beautiful song and it was written by Roy... Those lyrics, that feel meant something to him. And it just so happened that a song in a certain situation could mean something else. And the way that Frank Booth used that song in two different places, it is just kind of unbelievable. But I can see why Roy was upset because for him it meant a third thing."
Orbison did not know of or authorize the use of the song in Blue Velvet, but it proved beneficial to his career, which had stalled in the 1970s. BAM magazine called the song "the emotional epicenter of the film". Orbison re-recorded "In Dreams" again in 1987, for which Jeff Ayeroff brought Lynch to co-produce. Leslie Libman directed a music video for this recording, featuring scenes from Blue Velvet interspersed with live-action shots of Orbison's image projected over a linen cloth blowing in the wind.
In 2010, the song was used in an opening cinematic, and at the end of the first episode, of the video game Alan Wake.
In 2022, the song was also used in the first episode of Wednesday in a scene in which Morticia and Gomez Addams sing to each other.
While listening to the Blue Velvet soundtrack on repeat during a sleepless night, Bono of U2 became fixated on "In Dreams". After eventually falling asleep, he awoke with another song in his head, which he at first presumed to be a different Orbison tune. This became "She's a Mystery to Me", a song written by Bono and The Edge for Orbison. It appeared on Orbison's final album, Mystery Girl, released in 1989. On the same album, "In Dreams" received a companion piece, "In the Real World", written by Will Jennings and Richard Kerr. Many of Orbison's songs either address dreaming or are presented in a dreamlike style. In addition to the album released in 1963 and the re-recorded album of hits in 1987, a Canadian documentary on Orbison's life and impact on rock and roll also touched on the theme exemplified by the song; it was titled In Dreams: The Roy Orbison Story and released in 1999.
| style="text-align:center;"|7
|-
|
|-
|align="left"|UK Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|6
|-
|align="left"|US Billboard Hot 100
| style="text-align:center;"|7
|-
|align="left"|US Billboard Hot R&B Singles
| style="text-align:center;"|19
|-
|align="left"|US Billboard Middle-Road Singles
| style="text-align:center;"|3
|}
Citations
Bibliography
- Amburn, Ellis (1990). Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story, Carol Publishing Group.
- Clayson, Alan (1989). Only the Lonely: Roy Orbison's Life and Legacy, St. Martin's Press.
- Creswell, Toby (2006). 1001 Songs: The Greatest Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories, and Secrets Behind Them, Thunder's Mouth Press.
- Lehman, Peter (2003). Roy Orbison: The Invention of An Alternative Rock Masculinity, Temple University Press.