Sometimes, it can really work. (Image by Gerd Altmann)

With apologies to Judy Collins for the line that makes up this title, I have spent a lot of time in my life dreaming. Specifically, dreaming about love,

Dreams may not be real, but sometimes they can help get us through heartache. And sometimes they can even come true.

I love to dream, and I love listening to music. So it’s not surprising that I like songs about dreaming. They have helped keep hope alive over the years.

Here are a few of the tunes that have  boosted my belief that love is within range of my grasp.

Every nght, I hope and pray, a dream lover will come my way; a girl to hold in my arms,  and  know the magic of her charms.  

I can still hear Bobby Darin and Rick Nelson each crooning Dream Lover on the radio back in 1959, and it would be soon be a go-to song whenever my love life was looking grim.

When I feel blue in the night, I need you to hold me tight; Whenever I want you, all I have to do is dream.

The Everly Brothers had a big-time hit when All I Have to Do is Dream came out in 1958, and it validated my fantasy notion that this would be how I would find my love.

Dream until your dreams come true.

Steven Tyler and Aerosmith found fame with  Dream On in 1973, reiterating the same tip from the Everly Brothers 15 years earlier.

Dream baby, got me dreamin’ sweet dreams, the whole day through. 

In 1962, Roy Orbison released his blockbuster of Dream, Dream, Baby, just as my high school dating life was starting to pick up steam. And, to me, that was one steamy song.

You gotta follow that dream wherever that dream may take you, you gotta follow that dream wherever it may lead.

From the 1962 movie of the same name, Follow That Dream is a fast-paced tune was belted out by The King himself, Elvis. I figured if there’s one guy in the world who knows something about getting girls, it’s gotta be him. So I followed my dream.

In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk with you. In dreams you’re mine, all of the time.

In 1963, Orbison came right back with In Dreams, another dream song, only this one was about a guy who awoke from his dream to find his girl was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. We all went through it, so this one hit home.

While I can think, while I can talk, while I can stand, while I can walk; While I can dream, please let my dream come true, right now.

If you hear strains of Elvis again, If I Can Dream is the reason why. Although it’s more a dream about peace than love, they go hand in hand, and that worked for me.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by, When hope was high and life worth living; I dreamed that love would never die, I prayed that God would be forgiving. 

Was there ever a sadder song written about the dream of love than I Dreamed a Dream? This was an important one for me, because as it came along just as my heart had suffered a near-fatal break, and then arose from the ashes a few years later when I found an even more fulfilling love while she and I witnessed  this song be sung while on a date to see Les Miserables on Broadway.

I was 54, and that was the night when — finally — I didn’t need the dream anymore. It had become reality. Her name is Anne.

Jim Willis
I am a writer, college professor, and author of several nonfiction books, including three on the decade of the 1960s. Several wonderful essays of gifted Retrospect authors appear in my book, "Daily Life in the 1960s."