In dreams, the Pakistan Blues arrive …

Somewhere in the inky night between sleep, slumber and somnolence, I had a dream.  And although we all say we remember every part of every dream … in this case, I could only remember fragments.  Unconnected, dissonant fragments – something about listening to the radio, and hearing George Harrison playing a song called “Pakistan Blues.”

I woke up.  I gave myself a mental note.  “Remember ‘Pakistan Blues’ by George Harrison, it might make for a great blog post.”

And for the next few minutes, I tried to recall where I might have heard of a Pakistani Blues song.  Was this part of Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh” album?

But Bangladesh isn’t Pakistan – or maybe Bangladesh and Pakistan were part of India before the 1947 Partition, but I’m not 100% clear on that.

Or was I mis-remembering the song?  Was there a “Pakistan Blues” song by another artist?  Another trip down the YouTube alleyway brought me to a trailer for what appears to be a very fascinating documentary about the death of folk music in Pakistan, “Indus Blues.”  Hope this shows up at the Spectrum at some point in time.

But again, not the song I was searching for.

So I went back to George Harrison … and lo and behold, I found something different.  A 2001 song called “Marwa Blues,” from Harrison’s last album Brainwashed. Take a listen.

Perhaps this was the song I heard in my dreams.  It makes sense, dreams are the mind’s way of letting the subconscious make sense of our crazy lives.

Was the dream more about George Harrison or about the music of Pakistan?  And why wasn’t this making sense with my dreams?  Why can’t I remember more about this fragment – why it came to me, why it’s so vibrant, why it’s the last surviving fragment in a time period before I turned off the television at 10:15 p.m. and the moment I finally crawled out of bed at 6:15 a.m.?

Jeez, couldn’t I just dream about telephone poles and trains going through tunnels and telephone poles going through tunnels and cigars going through tunnels and easy psychoanalytical stuff like that?

Perhaps there’s one other option out there.

Perhaps my brain wanted to challenge me.  To come up with an effective blog post based on a simple topic.  Throw a series of unrelated concepts together and challenge the writer to create a cognitive and cognizant blog post out of it.

Wow.  Nearly ten years of blogging, spanning three different platforms, and my brain is now hard-wired to come up with a blog post each morning, without fail.  And even when I don’t think I have a topic to write about, my brain is going, “Hang on, buddy.  I got a post for you.  I’m pulling one concept from this barrel … and a second concept from this folder … and now you write about it.  Your time starts … now.  Allez Cuisine!”

So, if nothing else in this world makes sense … I’ve at least got my brain cells operating at maximum overdrive to guarantee a new blog post in one form or another.

Even if they have to work into the deep, dark night to create a challenge for me.

Let’s keep it going.

Maybe these were the “Pakistan Blues” after all.  ❤