“DREAM-WORLD” (Revisited) By Desmond Kelly ‘the Star of eLanka’

The song is well-known, as is the “Songwriter”,who got into the habit of writing songs for “special girlfriends”simply because “presents”(decent ones), were too expensive to buy, in Ceylon at the time, and, although it got him into trouble, sometimes, this did not cost him anything at all.

“Dream-World” was written by this songwriter at the birth of the fabulous 1950’s at number 38 Lorensz Road, Bambalapitiya, in Colombo, after this enamoured young man who was 15 at the time, had met this beautiful 14 year old girl who lived at number 10, on the same road.

He had a dream one night, about this same young lass & the rest was easy. It was just after midnight, & while he had never studied the “theory” of music, “tunes” would come into his head, and he would then compose the lyrics to fit the tune. It was very lucky that this songwriter had an exceptional memory. Once he completed the song, lyrics written in pencil in an old school exercise book, (as this was), he never forgot it. Dream-World was written in about 45 minutes, sung to the girl in private when she came to see him via the “rear alley” of their homes, the next day. He told her that he had this “present” for her, and sang it to her, accompanied by his old ukelele. She loved it, even though the song itself was “far advanced” in it’s outlook.

Later, Dream-World was “recorded” with this songwriter’s Singing Group called the “Semi-tones”, picked up by one of the biggest International Recording Company’s at the time, called Philips, in Holland, actually presold many thousands of copies (it was a little 45 rpm disc), before even arriving in Ceylon, went straight into the Ceylon Hit Parade on the Commercial Service, reached the “top” of the Parade in record time, keeping Elvis Presley’s “Don’t be cruel” in 2nd place for a few weeks, before then going into the “Binaca Hit Parade” in India & again, heading for the top in record time.

The songwriter, by this time, had joined the Royal Ceylon Navy, had got married to another very pretty girl, for whom he wrote the song “Cha-cha-baby”which she liked until she was “teased” so much about it, she decided to lay claim to Dream-World, as well. The songwriter only agreed to this because the girl he had written it for, had since gone on to the U.S.A. to be the 2nd runner-up to Miss Universe,1956.

The “Singing Sailor” then decided to send a copy of Dream-World to the President-elect, at the time, thru the American

Embassy in Colpetty, did get his acknowledgement for it, & was exceptionally proud when told that Dream-World had now become one of the favourite songs of another beautiful Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.

There have been many versions of Dream-World recorded. The songwriter however, prefers the “revisited” version. He hopes that all of his readers will like the eLanka version & make some comments about it.