Mary Lee Kortes is a musician and author based in Brooklyn, New York. She has released five albums of original material to wide critical acclaim, each of which landed on the Billboard critics’ top ten list in the year of its debut. Rolling Stone described her voice as “the high-mountain sunshine of Dolly Parton, with a sweet-iron undercoat of Chrissie Hynde.” She has toured the world both as a headliner and an opening act for established artists, including Dylan. Kortes is also a published short story writer. Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob is her first book.
On the heels of her book, Mary Lee has written an original song and produced a video about Bob Dylan as a sort of companion piece, and today Glide is excited to offer a premiere of the video. “Dreaming of Him” is an Americana rocker featuring none other than Eric Ambel on guitar. With an infectious chorus, Mary Lee sings about her own vision of Bob Dylan in her dreams, which is also exactly what her book is about. Her simple yet vivid lyrics capture the mystique and myths that have always swirled around the legendary folk musician, and her perspective feels almost playful and deeply personal.
Mary Lee shares her own colorful take on how the tune came to be:
Songwriting so fun it feels naughty!
How did this song come to be? My agent had actually suggested several months before publication that I write a song to go with the book (Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob). I wasn’t sure where to start and mentioned the task to Eric Ambel (co-writer and producer of the track). Eric suggested picking a dream and turning it into a song, but because the 115 dreams are alternately funny, poignant, sad, silly and scary—and all vivid and entertaining—it was hard to choose just one. Instead, I took images from numerous dreams, made a rhyme scheme, and I think even ended up with a bit of an arc to the lyric. It was so much fun, it almost felt naughty!
Recording it was a blast too. We did everything except the drums in our home studio in Brooklyn. I laid down a basic acoustic guitar track and vocal. Eric supplied all the other guitar parts, including the lap steel solo. Jason Mercer popped over and played the bass. And Sammy Merendino did the drums back at his house in Harlem!
And there you have it: a song is born.
WATCH:
