Gregory Darling first connected with Julian Lennon in Los Angeles in the early ’90s. At the time, Darling was in his band, Darling Cruel, and Lennon had released his fourth album Help Yourself. Both later reconnected in Europe in the mid-90s to work on Lennon’s 1998 album Photograph Smile, which featured four songs co-written with Darling.
Throughout the decades, the two toured together and continued collaborating, including on Lennon’s 2011 release Everything Changes and Jude from 2022. In 2006, Darling also released his solo debut Shell, and revisits one of its tracks with Lennon, “A New Dream.”
“Working with Greg is like working with your brother/best friend,” said Lennon in a statement. “And ‘A New Dream’ is something we both aspire to.”
Written by Darling in the south of France a decade earlier, the mellowed pop ballad delivers an unembellished message of hope, and the magnetic pull of dreams when everything may seem hopeless—I need a new dream to get by on / A dream I could fly on / With wings I could carry on / I need a new dream to make me see, make me feel like living has a meaning to me.
“’A New Dream,’ aims to bring a message of beauty, inspiration, and hope in the face of challenging times,” reads a descriptor of the song. “This track reflects not only their musical journey but also the power of creativity to uplift and connect people, setting a meaningful tone as the world enters a new year.”
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With Lennon and Darling’s vocals echoing off one another, their reimagining of “A New Dream” plays like a dreamlike waltz, and is accompanied by a hand-drawn animation music video, created by Charlie Warner over several weeks, capturing the essence of the lyrics, of being lost and finding resilience.
“I wanted to put a new twist on the original production and arrangement, so I locked myself in the studio and being subjected to Covid lockdown, it felt appropriate,” said Darling. “I created a new beat, replaced the strings with synths, added guitars, bass, BVs, and then Ian Kelosky mixed it, giving it a fresh sound, where the vocals really pop out.”
The song also mirrors the messages behind the duo’s philanthropic projects, with Lennon as the founder of the White Feather Foundation, addressing humanitarian and environmental issues worldwide, and Darling, who is head of artist outreach for Reluvotion, which advocates for greener and more sustainable workplaces.
In a joint statement to American Songwriter, Lennon and Gregory said: “We’re never too young or too old for rediscovery, reimagining or reinventing ourselves and it’s not impossible to rekindle those childhood dreams and creativity we’ve all had as children. Society has a way of reshaping the mindset, heart, and soul at an early age, thus diminishing creativity, which I believe is in all of us.”
They added, “A beautiful dream is a mysterious form of creativity, and we don’t have to be famous to enjoy it.”
Photo: Anthony Caligagan
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