The entry in the yacht rock canon we’re highlighting with this article is definitely one of the lusher, more soulful additions to the genre. It stood out as a vehicle for the musical talents of Kenny Nolan, who had previously made his mark as a songwriter of note.
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“I Like Dreamin’” put Nolan on the map as an artist in his own right, although that wasn’t something that appealed all that much to him (which is part of the reason there weren’t a ton of follow-up hits forthcoming from him). Here’s how he briefly soared to the soft-rock heights with this 1976 single.
Writer for Hire
Kenny Nolan was such a prodigy that he was able to earn a pair of scholarships from universities with prestigious music departments before he was even of the age when most people move on to college. In both cases, the Los Angeles native bolted from those hallowed halls pretty quickly because he felt there was too much theorizing and not enough doing.
These decisions didn’t hamper his professional prospects one bit. By the early ‘70s, he was already making his name as both a writer and producer. Being an artist wasn’t quite in the cards at that point, even though he possessed an excellent voice to sing his own material if he wished.
By the mid-‘70s, Nolan was at the top of his game, writing a pair of massive hit singles with Bob Crewe, who was famous for his work writing many of the top songs by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Showing their versatility, the pair wrote the lush soul single “My Eyes Adored You” for Valli and the sinewy disco smash “Lady Marmalade” for Chic.
“Dreamin’” Is Easy
Initially, Nolan also thought he’d be giving away “I Like Dreamin’.” But when the artist he had in mind passed on the song, a record company approached Nolan to record the song himself. It became his first solo single and the highlight of his self-titled debut album.
The song struck a nerve with its slow-dance vibes, rising all the way to No. 3 on the pop charts. “Love’s Grown Deep,” also from the debut album, rolled to the Top 20 as well. It seemed as if Nolan was headed for a massive career as a balladeer.
Yet even as he recorded three more albums in the years immediately following “I Like Dreamin’,” his reluctance to commit to the kind of time and effort to sustain a solo career pushed him back toward a writer-for-hire role. That’s been Nolan’s main area of focus ever since the early ‘80s.
What is “I Like Dreamin’” About?
Nolan’s narrator in “I Like Dreamin’” is a kind of Walter Mitty character, getting lost in his reveries because his reality doesn’t appeal to him. Specifically, he dreams of the object of his desire, concocting elaborate, specific scenarios where they’re together. After all, as he explains, dreamin’ can make you mine.
We get a play-by-play of an imagined beachfront dalliance, and then a look at how the pair might build a family in the future. But each time, Nolan undercuts these bright possibilities with what’s really happening. If only it could be, he sings at the end of the first verse. And then, at the end of the second: Until I wake up and reach for you / And you’re just not there.
It’s never clear if this is a case of unrequited love or a situation where the narrator once went with the girl, but lost her somewhere along the way. In any case, “I Like Dreamin’” manages to be dashingly romantic and crushingly sad all at once, which is why it stands as Kenny Nolan’s crowning achievement in his truncated heyday as a recording artist.
Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
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