Behind the music: Desperate Dreams

Sure, Desperate Dreams is a certified bop™️ — but like a lot of my music, there’s a deeper story underneath the beat. So, let’s peel back the curtain and talk about the moment this track was born.

Desperate Dreams Cover Art

Imagine this: you're stuck in a soul-sucking corporate job, riding solo through life with frozen pizza and reruns as your usual weeknight companions. Then, one day, they introduce a new hire at work — and boom, it’s like someone dropped a movie character into your grayscale world. He’s charming. Gorgeous. Wearing a Lana Del Rey shirt that probably violates some vague HR dress code. (Respect.)

Weeks pass. You become work-friends. There’s that electric what-if feeling simmering in the background. You think, Maybe I’ll ask him to happy hour. Maybe there’s something here. But by the time you finally muster the courage, reality lands with a gut punch:“I’ve actually got a partner.”

You smile. You nod. But inside, a little world you’d built in your head quietly collapses.

Even if nothing real ever happened, you find yourself mourning the version of things that could’ve been. The version that never got to exist — except maybe in your dreams. And one night, that dream hit differently. It felt real enough to haunt me. That’s when Desperate Dreams started writing itself.

That dream - the one where everything did work out — felt more vivid than my actual memories. We were laughing, holding hands, moving through some ideal version of life where timing, circumstances, and reality didn’t get in the way. But as always, the sun rose, and the spell broke. I woke up with the feeling still clinging to me like fog. That ache… that longing for something that never was — that’s what poured into Desperate Dreams.

The lyrics tell the rest. A heart that can’t quite let go. A mind that keeps drifting into those parallel timelines, hoping one might lead somewhere different. Somewhere happier. But as the chorus reminds us:

“These feelings never leave me alone. Desperate dreams I can’t call my own.”

It’s a song about unspoken stories and unrealized versions of love — the kind that happen behind your eyes and never make it to your lips. And maybe it’s a little dramatic (okay, it’s very dramatic), but so are feelings. Especially the ones you never get to act on.

So if you’ve ever been stuck between acceptance and a dream you can’t quite shake, this one’s for you.

Thanks for listening. — Dito 💔✨