Buttkickin' Halloween Songs: "Street of Dreams" -- Blackmore's Night (2006)

I heard the sound of voices in the night
Spellbound, there was someone calling
I looked around, no one was in sight
Pulled down, I just kept on falling…

So living freakin’ guitar legend Richie Blackmore has spent the better part of the last two decades creating folk/Renaissance music with his wife Candice Night under the moniker of Blackmore’s Night (get it?!), and GOD BLESS HIM FOR THAT.

No for real. If he cared one skiff about what all the fanboy rock nerds demanded from him, he’d be stuck with Deep Purple for fifty years playing Smoke on the Water and Space Truckin’ at County Fairs across the world, and given that potential for existential woe, Blackmore gave conventional expectations the finger and ran off to do his own thing… which often consists of playing Renaissance Fairs around the world. But any time you have the freedom to do what you WANT to do in life, you’re eternally living the dream.

And speaking of happy, I’m a big, big Rainbow fan (moreso the Ronnie James Dio albums than the later ones, but that’s my preference) and their 1983 hit single Street of Dreams was always a favorite. Catchy, moody, melodic hard rock. So when Blackmore’s Night covered it in 2006 with a more folk-festival feel, I was all in.

I love the sound of acoustic guitars, percussion, mandolins, chimes, etc. but Blackmore’s Night covered the song fairly earnestly… even with Blackmore plugging that Strat back in for a ripping electric solo.

But what Blackmore’s Night added to the song was more of an orchestral sense of mystery and wonder and dark excitement, an atmospheric tone that was somewhat missing from the original. After all, the song deals with the realm of Morpheus, that other world we access through our sleeping souls. And there the narrator finds a woman, every night, on that same street.

And then, perhaps, he sees her in the waking world. A stranger? A familiar presence? Both? Who the heck knows… it just makes for a wonderfully evocative and melodic song that totally fits into any Halloween playlist.

And the remix with former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner (who sang on the original single) dueting with Candice makes it an even more enticing treat.

I’ve seen this place before
When you were standing by my side
I’ve seen your face before tonight
Maybe I just see what I want it to be
I know it’s a mystery

Do you remember me
On the street of dreams?