Gillian Welch - I Dream A Highway Lyrics

Vivid memory listening to this song with my love in a beach carpark in galicia Spain in 2008 on a dark winters night both knowing we wouldn't last despite our love

That photo of the older lady in the car w this song is really sad

If you like this check out 'East of Eden' by Leif Vollebekk. It was inspired by this and is equally beautiful

‘You be Emmylou and I’ll be Gram . . .’

Can dreams really come true? 🏠🦁🐺🌎

Jim Morrison is my number one music writer by far.This little bony Red head Lady is a close second and that is a big deal to me.All of this because it, the music, and words, evoke contemplative, deeply etched emotion somewhere I feel in the darkness that is part of my soul in this life.

the woman in this pic look just like my great grandmother did.

Not looking to buy, but Gillian is Heaven sent

Wow! this song just laid me out... talk about a world unto itself! There is something rare and unrepeatably special about hearing a song that you are ready for... for the 1st time.  Amazing.  (Also love I. J. Horwood's recollection! hilarious!.... I hear ya.)

There's a uniqueness to Gillian's voice on this song that I still can't understand after all these years. I enjoy revisiting to read the comments every so often.

magical from a magical album

Im obsessed with this album. This song in particular. I heard a interview withGW and she said she presented the song when they recorded it. DR didn't know the song at all and in his words from the Wiki page he reflects this

"According to Rawlings, "I Dream a Highway" had never been played before it was recorded. "So, we played it twice and I edited both versions together. But, I wanted that because I knew it was a minor song that had ... There was a lot that could happen with the harmonies and the guitar playing than if we'd done it a lot of times, so we could just travel through a lot more of it than if we knew where we were supposed to start and where we were supposed to end."[2]"

and this is a lovely write up of it.

https://americansongwriter.com/2016/10/gillian-welch-dream-highway-2/

I Dream a Highway

Gillian Welch

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and rest my soul
I dream a highway back to you

John he's kicking out the footlights
The Grand Ole Opry's got a brand new band
Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand
I dream a highway back to you.

I think I'll move down into Memphis
And thank the hatchet man who forked my tongue
I lie and wait until the wagons come
And dream a highway back to you.

The getaway kicking up cinders
An empty wagon full of rattling bones
Moon in the mirror on a three-hour jones,
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vison come arrest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?
Now you be Emmylou and I'll be Gram
I send a letter, don't know who I am
I dream a highway back to you.

I'm an indisguisable shade of twilight
Any second now I'm gonna turn myself on
In the blue display of the cool cathode ray
I dream a highway back to you.

I wish you knew me, Jack of Diamonds
Fire-riding, wheeling when I lead em up
Drank whisky with my water, sugar in my tea
My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Now give me some of what you're having
I'll take you as a viper into my head
A knife into my bed, arsenic when I'm fed
I dream a highway back to you.

Hang overhead from all directions
Radiation from the porcelain light
Blind and blistered by the morning white
I dream a highway back to you.

Sunday morning at the diner
Hollywood trembles on the verge of tears
I watched the waitress for a thousand years
Saw a wheel within a wheel, heard a call within a call
I dreamed a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Step into the light, poor Lazarus
Don't lie alone behind the window shade
Let me see the mark death made
I dream a highway back to you.
I dream a highway back to you.

What will sustain us through the winter?
Where did last years lessons go?
Walk me out into the rain and snow
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my soul
I dream a highway back to you

I dream a highway back to you
Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my sould
I dream a highway back to you

Song is. Always was.

My cat loves Gillian, Anne Hills, and Kate Wolf....my cat has better taste in music than 99% of humans I know!😀🐱

I'll be Emmy and you'll be Gram....just make me cry, then.....

This was playing while I slept, if u have Gillian and that soulful, mournful voice in your dreams, u are doing okay!🦄💜

Saw Gillian & Dave at the old Avalon (now House of Blues) in Boston years back. Awesome show.

You think she was ever on the hard stuff? It sure seems like she was. She writes about having lived a self-destructive life.

Grandma uses a towel to pull the pan of hot biscuits from the old wood cook stove.She places them on the butcher block and wraps the warm towel around her aching hand feeling the soothing heat. Grandpa moves in slowly thru the backdoor. He remarks it is still hard cold out the animals abide and tolerate not much more............................This song takes me back to 1958 and that kitchen somehow

......."i;m an indisguisable shade of twilight"......an epic piece of music

If I had to live through a harsh burnout, Gillian's songs would be my medicine.

Well, I can actually confirm this. They helped me get through this shit. They´re family now.

this song is one reason I don't listen to music much anymore...

...
nobody should have
to bear all that death-determined beauty
every single year this aging body knows
it can't be borne

Grace Paley

She knows how to make the music match the subject matter.

Gillian was in an altered state of conscience when she wrote this. Ezekiel’s wheel inside a wheel. Part of this is code and breadcrumbs from a trip only partially communicable.

I so love this song

Best moment of live music I've ever experienced. Devastating and Righteous.

I usually don't care for country music but Gillian Welch sings about what matters in life and memories of old and not the crap that is sung today-- thank you Gillian for your songs that come from your soul--this is what country music is all about

Flawless.

"Smoldering with goosebumps "

Lovely, lovely, lovely!

I'm headed to the hills. life is short but long also

"a winding ribbon with a band of gold" - vibrantly visual, yet perfectly succinct

This is my favourite song. Its so beautiful.

I saw Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at the Ralph Stanley Homestead in Coeburn VA.They put on a great show.

My dog is resting next to me and he gets pissed when I turn it off. #nuffsaid

Lol, it's a dog with taste!

A Song for good Country Folk.


Consider myself one at heart, out in the woods-will miss it, the Florida wood.
#northbound

My Pet house Bunny's agree with your dog!.

What is your dog's Twitter handle I'd like to hit him up

My cats loved this song. They are both in pussy heaven now. Sure miss my kitties Sammy and Scotchguard

relaxin song as some else said, I listen to her all night long, a real coming voice...

Grandma on the video was 9 when the song started.
(Nice song though)

Thanks for the humorous comment - it made me laugh!

I came here because of Ryan G from MM

Your welcome!

You can hear a lot of maturity in her voice and tone. Like she's experienced a type of sorrow or sadness for many years and even in the acceptance of the uncertainty of being strong enough. There's an underlying, counteracting strength which will keep her afloat. It's really sad that life is so difficult for some people, yet there's a strange and immense beauty about how altruistic and resilient a soul can be

Deep and beautifully expressed thoughts inspired by this song. Shows its worth.

nicely said

voice of an angel

so cool

"I'm an indistiguisable shade of twilight ... any second now I'm gonna turn myself on ... in the blue display of the clear cathode ray ... I dream a highway back to you". This song is brilliant. I love the slow pace of it. It's so peaceful." A winding ribbon with a band of gold. I dream a highway back to you ....Now give me some of what you're having, I"ll take you as a viper into my head; a knife into my bed; arsenic when I'm fed ... I dream a highway back to you". This is such a deep song, it's fascinating on so many levels." I watch the waitress for a thousand years; saw a wheel inside a wheel; hear a call within a call". Dream on, Gillian and David, I love your music!

Just insanely good

My, now, husband sent this to me years ago when he was in Afghanistan.I listened it until I believed him. It made me cry then as it still does. He isn't enlisted anymore but is still doing the same type of job, now in Iraq. We dream a highway back to each other always. I love you Lee, God protect you.XOXO

Hang on to the dream!

God bless your Husband and all like him.US Navy 1974-1980, Cold War, Beirut where, I lost my team mates and my femur divided into 19 shiny pieces where, I met a God I had only previously disavowed.A horrible night September 13, 1979 ended my Naval career, and changed me for the better thereafter.

I love you.

I love the slow and peaceful pace of this song. I am about to celebrate 35 yrs of marriage, and I have patience. Something rare in this current society. I love this song. Thanks to Gillian and Dave, you have touched so many hearts with your music.

This is my Son's tranquillizer and lulliby, I squeak along to it but I can't sing it, thank you nikme for the suggestion so many years ago!

My daughter sent this to me some time ago ... a very special song indeed ...

i love the little old lady I'm the very old (1963) rambler. I recallmy tween years and my perception of old age. I recall how sweet these elderly people were, and how wise, and I smile...!

My son sent me the lyrics and I read all the words and loved them. I wish I had the disc to play, and he said, it's on youtube. So, I finally had to tell the world that this is a great rendition of a great poem song.

They played this last year in Melbourne Australia on the last night of their tour. It was night of laughter and a few tears. You could have heard a pin drop through this whole song.

Festival hall. Extra gig at the end of the tour. Destroyed me. :)

Slow down and listen to these deeply, intensely personal, beautiful artists.  it will be well worth your time, if you have the sense to appreciate it.

I owned a Rambler American just like the one in this photo. Haunting.

Brings tears to my eyes. So beautiful.

Beautiful Song

Def my fave song on this album-

"What will sustain us through the winter?" This. It will have to be this.

As album-closing songs go, they don’t get much more epic than “I Dream A Highway,” the 14-and-a-half minute track that ends Gillian Welch’s 2001 album Time (The Revelator.) It’s a track that’s memorable for far more than its length. Each of the song’s eleven verses and six refrains feels necessary, as if you removed one, the rest would tumble, Jenga-like, in a heap of disparate images and rhymes.

Welch intended the song to be a culmination of everything that comprised Time (The Revelator), which she wrote and performed with steady collaborator Dave Rawlings. As she told Canada’s Exclaim website, “I Dream A Highway” turned out to be a case of more is more.

“It just happened that all these lyrics I was writing belonged in that song. I tried to edit things out but it didn’t make it better,” Welch remembered. “In fact, it was the opposite; I realized that everything this record was about was in that song. Dave and I ultimately decided that we couldn’t put it on unless the rest of the record felt complete, so if people want to stop it at ‘Everything Is Free’ (the penultimate track on the album), that’s fine. ‘I Dream A Highway’ is more of a coda to the whole thing.”
Yet the song is such a mesmeric, monumental achievement that another way to look at it is that the rest of the album is a prelude to it. Welch’s verses each tell a story all their own, yet when pulled together they create parallel tales of a country and an individual within it slowly going astray. “Saw a wheel inside a wheel, heard a call within a call,” Welch sings at one point, illustrating the duality the song evinces.

Music plays a big part of Welch’s tapestry. She name-drops country legends Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, and Emmylou Harris and references folk songs like “John Henry” and “Jack Of Diamonds” as exemplars of integrity and truth, while also hinting that it’s not like it used to be; “The Grand Old Opry’s got a brand new band,” she muses, which may be why her narrator considers a move to Memphis. Religious imagery can be found throughout the song as well, from Lazarus’ not-so scot-free resurrection (“Let me see the mark that death has made”) to the perilous state of the narrator’s soul which, depending on the refrain, longs to be rested, arrested, convalesced and molested.

The narrator, given heart and soul by Welch’s world-weary vocal, travels the song’s landscape bemused and always on the verge of self-destruction. In the final verse, she wonders how long this can go on: “What will sustain us through the winter?/ Where did last year’s lessons go?” Yet her reverie persists: “I dream a highway back to you/ A winding ribbon with a band of gold.”

Maybe the answers await at the end of that symbolic road. Or maybe there lies salvation, as Welch’s final plea is for “A silver vision come and bless my soul.” “I Dream A Highway” is one of those songs that invite all kinds of analyses and interpretations. But it’s also a good idea to stop pondering it and let it wash over you every once in a while in all its epic melancholy. At the end of it you’ll likely be of the opinion that 14-and-a-half minutes wasn’t near long enough.

This is a beautiful song to play while someone is peacefully dying.

Shall we die tonight?

Thinking of my friend, Elen Mai Wyn-Jones, who left us a year ago today. She was a Welsh Warrior x

When this song starts playing at the end of 16 years of alcohol, my soul just break every single time..

Hope you are well.

listen, im like really drunk. 12 shots of whisky want to tell tall someth i ing. i want anone here to enjoy this beautfiful peivce of musicc. everyone neneeds to enjoy tis beautiful peiccce of music. i love you all, enhoy the beauty in your life. I drank whiskey with my water

LYRICS

Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come and rest my soul

I dream a highway back to you



John, he's kicking out the footlights

The Grand Ole Opry's got a brand new band

Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand

I dream a highway back to you



I think I'll move down into Memphis

And thank the hatchet man who forked my tongue

I lie and wait until the wagons come

And dream a highway back to you



The getaway kickin' up cinders

An empty wagon full of rattling bones

Moon in the mirror on a three hour Jones

I dream a highway back to you



Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come arrest my soul

I dream a highway back to you



Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?

Now you be Emmylou and I'll be Gram

I send a letter, don't know who I am

I dream a highway back to you



I'm an indisguisable shade of twilight

Any second now, I'm gonna turn myself on

In the blue display of the cool cathode ray

I dream a highway back to you



I wish you knew me, Jack of Diamonds

Fire riding, wheeling when I lead 'em up

Drank whiskey with my water, sugar in my tea

My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags

I dream a highway back to you



Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come molest my soul

I dream a highway back to you



Now, give me some of what you're having

I'll take you as a viper into my head

A knife into my bed, arsenic when I'm fed

I dream a highway back to you



Hang overhead from all directions

Radiation from the porcelain light

Blind and blistered by the morning white

I dream a highway back to you



Sunday morning at the Diner

Hollywood trembles on the verge of tears

I watched the waitress for a thousand years

Saw a wheel inside a wheel, heard a call within a call

I dreamed a highway back to, you



Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come molest my soul

I dream a highway back to you



Step into the light, poor Lazarus

Don't lie alone behind the window shade

Let me see the mark death made

I dream a highway back to you

I dream a highway back to you



What will sustain us through the winter?

Where did last years lessons go?

Walk me out into the rain and snow

I dream a highway back to you



Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come and bless my soul

I dream a highway back to you

I dream a highway back to you



Oh, I dream a highway back to you, love

A winding ribbon with a band of gold

A silver vision, come and bless my soul

I dream a highway back to you

I dream.

Greatest rock 'n' roll, country, pop, folk, americana song ever written...IMHO..

Pardon my dust.

I'm here because I need to drain the ole tear ducts.

Great song.

Is anyone else listening to the lyrics? This is a song about addiction and recovery.

Get well.

I guess perceiving is believing, as it go. Thanks.

engyn0 I could see that..."caught in the mirror on a three hour jones"

This is beautiful sadness

beautiful work of art ,,from an amazing album

cant get enough of gillian's...i listen to her songs everyday,its nostalgic. for no reason feel like i live a different life before and now its haunting me..

This song came into my life right when I needed it the most.

Me too!

I could listen to this for an hour. It's so peaceful

I think we all, at one point in your lives, dream a highway back to someone

+Jmoot most times, corny as it is, we're are the ones that have to pave that highway.

isn't it devastating to realize that it's just out of your control? Me too I have the same dream man. hope you're still ok after these 5 months since you've left your comments. Reply if you can and tell me how're you doing

me too.

I think it's really beautiful, especially how highways are actually part of American culture. David Lynch's title for Lost Highway makes alot more sense when you link it to romance. In Europe it seems like we always try to ignore the things that surround us and just make up fairytales about what we wanna be instead of just looking around us and finding beauty in reality.

so beautiful!

thanks for reminding me how good this album was.

dedicate this song to bobby and all the state troopers watching over the usa highways

this is just so melancholic and utterly mesmerizing - hauntingly beautiful.

I get so mesmerized by these two, especially on this song.
In this time of Go Go Go,with their ability to refrain from speeding up one iota.
Reminds those of us who actually take the time to open up and listen that life was designed to run at this pace.
I am currently undergoing a 38 session of radiation and this song plays in my head while in the 'Nuke Tube'.
THANK YOU, Gillian and David!!!!

hello and good day to you, sir! from another michael keller :)

God Bless you, Michael. Hope it all goes well.

Michael Keller true love is slow and quiet. They capture this perfectly

A long song? No where near long enough for me.

Years ago my wife and I watched a sun setting on the Oregon coast as this song was playing in the background...and if there were ever a song that'd pull the pain from you...this one was it for me. I don't know which was more awe-inspiring, listening to the cleansing sound of them waves hitting the rocks again and again...or listening to this songs lullaby of a mantra...again and again.

A silver vision come molest my soul...

I dream a highway back to you.

+Melinda Zupan Where on the Coast? (In Portland, I love our coast!) This song would be amazing in that circumstance, for sure, :)

This song has that timeless, eternal feel where it's like your entire life has had this song playing in the background, and, for me, the dreamt highway leads to something that has never existed, a person I've never known, people from my life, and even myself from a time before this. It's no one thing.

It sounds like you have a nice memory, and with this song of all things. I hope you're wife is alive and well and that you're both okay.

That looks so much like My beloved Gram, sitting in Gramp's old Falcon..... : ) .....

wow, Gillian's diamond voice and slivered sentiment could cut through generations.....she is a gem.

a silver vision come and bless my soul, not molest

@Marie Wilson It's both. Depending on the verse it's following. Molest essentially means "bother."

@TurnipTornado You're right, listened to the chorus and she does say "molest."

@Marie Wilson a silver vision come arrest my soul, not bless

@bryan s omg. it's different every chorus. stop correcting each other.:P

@TurnipTornado That's true :)

Longest song ever.......said by no one.

In the olden days this song would take up one whole side of the vinyl album.

I never said nothin'

@Ali Mahmood : When I was a kid I had an import from Germany of an electronic performance by Klaus Schulze. I remember bragging that a song on one side of the record was nearly 29 minutes long!

Good times.

hugs to you whitney take care both of you from me in Auckland new Zealand

I dedicate this song to my daughter Vata.  Your father played this song.  He fell in love with you your first day in this world. 04/05/2013  (R.I.P Jason Patrick Woolen Gillim October 29, 1976-December 24, 2014)

ohhhh Whitney ....... Hugs from Stuttgart, Germany ...

my favorite one of her songs. makes me cry every time.

anything as heart felt, and slow like a river's flow can quickly center one's heart, and mood this is the pace of peace + healing with time it moves so slow your heart can rewind to a simpler place + time.

lovely, the pace of peace.

another simple song about travelling:
http://youtu.be/NT8ru-JdO8Y

I feel such a fool I only discovered  this lady today,  I am spending too   much time writing poetry and not enough time listening to wonderful singers like this, http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hardman1

so sad, so beautiful!!!

Simply my favourite song and treatment of any song ever, of all time, forever AND the other one? Gillian and Dave too, Time (the Revelator).

wow... mind blown, heart broken and soul lost -- all in this song. 

In some strange way makes me think of Dylan's A Hard Rains Going To Fall

theeasybeats I can see that. Both are epic Americana poetry that paint some incredible imagery.

2 words: fucking brilliant.

I can't for the life of me remember the name of the film set in Scotland that this song was used for in the final scene? If I remember rightly a guy trying to sort his life out is being kicked to death while this song plays........... so i now love Gillian. 

16 Years of Alcohol

@rgutter I've got "16 Years of Alcohol" sitting in my "to watch" bookmarks. Never new this song featured... 

This song needs a video of American highways.

someone do it NOW

This is the most beautiful piece of music I've ever listened to.

Heartbreaking, yet absolutely beautiful.

"I watched the waitress for a thousand years..." My god.  

Why is that so amazing? Like she watched a waitress for a thousend years because waitress was busy and not coming.

I was at a bar once and I played this song on the juke box. It was a pretty crowded night and at about minute 3 I was hearing comments about how slow the song was. Then at 5 minutes the comments were, "this song is still on?" At about 8 minutes the situation turned to desperation. The bar tender couldn't find the remote so she had no way to skip tracks. There was a crowd gathered around the juke box trying to change the song. People were getting so mad my friends and I tried to blend in so no one noticed we were the ones who had put it on! There was a round of applause when it finished. I felt like putting it on again walking out the door. I love Gillian Welch. haha. #haters  

you shoulda put it on again before you left, lol!

Yeah fuck those guys

voilaviolamh
Yessir.
Pint. Slouched. hood up, looking straight ahead kinda music

@Dolly P 🤣🤣✌👍👍👍

😂❤

My idea of heaven is lying in the shade, my back against a cool floor, looking out over the surf on a beautiful day with Gillian and Dave playing just a few feet away. I could do that for eternity.

Agreed, Clansman. Although I first heard this track sitting on a warm evening on the roof of a barn in South Carolina with my girl - she being the one responsible for giving me this musical edification. Had a jar of the local moonshine in my hand, as I remember, and whenever I hear this I'm back there.
"Isn't that bluegrass?"
"Here, we call it mountain music." 

@Gordon Kerr South Carolina? Sounds like Heaven to me! Never been there, it's a long trip from Ireland but I hear its worth the journey, one day....