Some things you create when you’re young disappear into the past. A notebook gets lost, a photograph ends up in a box, and a song you wrote with your friends becomes little more than a memory. Every once in a while, though, something comes back. That’s what happened with a song called “Midnight Dreamin’,” which we originally wrote around 1979 while we were high school kids in Enid, Oklahoma. Nearly 50 years later, we’ve finally recorded it properly and are releasing it to the world.
The story started years before the song was written. My friend Staten moved to Enid when we were in sixth grade and already played guitar. Eventually he got an electric guitar, and I decided I needed one too, even though I barely knew how to play. My mom bought me a Kalamazoo electric guitar, and Staten and I spent plenty of time learning songs and messing around with chords. By junior high we had become friends with Todd Wheeler, who could sing and play piano. Once we got to high school, I met Alan Goodson, who played bass, and he introduced me to his friend Kyle Sherm, who played drums. Suddenly we had everything we needed for a band.
We practiced in garages and dens around Enid and played songs by bands like Kansas, Thin Lizzy, REO Speedwagon, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Rolling Stones. Eventually I wanted us to write something of our own. I usually started songs by picking around on my guitar until I found something I liked, and that’s how “Midnight Dreamin’” began. I came up with the opening and, as I remember it, the title. Staten added chords and helped develop the song, Todd added more lyrics, and eventually Alan and Kyle learned their parts. Before long, “Midnight Dreamin’” became one of the original songs we played alongside our covers.
Our band wasn’t originally called Reality. For a while we were Rocinante, named after Don Quixote’s horse. It sounded pretty cool and mysterious to a bunch of teenagers in the late ’70s, so I even had business cards printed with the name. The problem was that nobody could pronounce it, and every time we explained what it meant, the reaction was usually less than exciting. Eventually we decided we needed something simpler. Around that time we had another original song called “Train to Reality,” and somewhere along the way we decided that Reality would make a much better band name. I went back to the print shop and had another batch of business cards made.
One of our biggest moments came when we auditioned for the Enid High talent show with “Midnight Dreamin’.” Instead of doing a cover, we played our own song. Back then it was much more of a straight rock song, with electric guitars and drums kicking in after a quieter opening. Apparently we were a little too loud for at least one of the judges, and we barely missed making the show. Still, we had performed an original song in front of an audience, and for a bunch of teenage guys with guitars, that was a pretty big deal.
By our senior year, Reality started fading away. We had girlfriends, jobs and other things taking up our time, and we weren’t practicing much or playing many shows. We had pooled our money to buy a Peavey PA system, lights, flash pots and even a siren, but eventually the band broke up around 1981. Everybody went their separate ways, and “Midnight Dreamin’” basically disappeared into an old folder of handwritten lyrics and memories.
Decades later, Todd and I started The 70’s Buzz Podcast, and naturally we began revisiting a lot of those old stories. At one point we talked about having Todd’s son Derek record “Midnight Dreamin’,” but life got busy and nothing ever came of it. Then AI music tools arrived. After hearing one of our podcast listeners use AI to create full-band arrangements of his original songs, I had an idea. I called Staten and asked him to make a simple acoustic recording of “Midnight Dreamin’” and send it to me. I uploaded it into Suno and asked for a 1970s-style rock arrangement.
Hearing a full-band version of that song for the first time since around 1980 hit me harder than I expected. I got chills. It suddenly sounded like a real song again instead of something that had only existed in our memories. I experimented with several arrangements, including rock, cinematic and acoustic versions. Eventually Staten, Todd and I all agreed that an adult acoustic version was our favorite.
Before we could take things much further, Todd passed away. That changed the meaning of the project. We eventually shared the AI-assisted version on The 70’s Buzz Podcast, and people liked it, but I still wanted a recording made by the people who had actually created the song. When our 45th high school reunion came around and Staten was going to be in Enid, we decided it was finally time to do it.
Plans to use a regular recording studio fell through, so I converted part of Shaggy Duck Studio into our own little recording space. Staten brought guitars and a cajon, and we used Todd’s microphone from The 70’s Buzz Podcast to record the vocals and instruments. We borrowed a keyboard, discovered that it had all the sounds we needed, and started building the song one track at a time. Staten played acoustic guitar and sang, I added another acoustic guitar track, and Staten layered in bass, strings, drums, percussion and additional vocals. By the time we finished, we had probably a dozen or more tracks.
Somehow, inside that little studio in Enid, two guys in their 60s finished a song they had started as teenagers.
We used an old photograph of Reality to create a new logo and album cover, filed the paperwork and officially copyrighted the song. We also updated a few words in the lyrics, partly because some lines sounded different coming from married adults than they did coming from teenage boys, and partly because I could see “Midnight Dreamin’” fitting into The Banana Seat Squad if that story ever becomes a movie.
What makes the song especially meaningful to me is that Todd is still a part of it. His lyrics are there, his history is there, and the microphone we spent years talking into together on The 70’s Buzz Podcast is the same microphone we used to finally record the song. I think he would have loved that.
So after nearly half a century, “Midnight Dreamin’” by Reality is finally going out into the world. It started with a few high school kids in Enid, Oklahoma, playing guitars and dreaming about having a band. It took about 47 years longer than we expected, but we finally finished what we started.
Sometimes the old dreams aren’t really gone. They’re just waiting for you to come back and finish them.
PODCAST
Listen to “Releasing Our First Song From 1979” on Spreaker.
VIDEO
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