Beautiful poetry and deep insights about life are all around us and can never be defined, categorized, or taught, only found or discovery by each of us. We all have a monopoly on defining beauty, but only for ourselves. This is everyone’s rights and duty.    

I found beauty today in a ”simple” music lyric to a song that I have listened to hundreds of times, but without really understanding the meaning of. The song is “Caught In A Dream” by the rock group Alice Cooper and is written by one of the band’s guitarists, Michael Bruce, and can be find on the album “Love It to Death”, from 1971. 

Today, as I listened to this song, I focused on the lyric, which I may never really done before, and discovered how these lines capture a deeper insight and feeling about my life. It probably describes a feeling that we all carry but that we usually do not put into words, something Michael Bruce now helped me to.       

For me, the text is about our alienation and the dream world we all create and live in with the purpose to try to suppress the realization of our own mortality by seeking a meaning of life that does not exist. We try to understand and get to know each other’s worlds but we are all existentially alone, trapped in our own dream, fighting our own destiny.

“Caught In A Dream” by Michael Bruce

Well I’m runnin’ through the world with a gun in my back

tryin’ to catch a ride in a cadillac

Thought that I was livin’ but you can’t really tell

been tryin’ to get away from that success smell

You know I need a houseboat and I need a plane

I need a butler and a trip to Spain

I need everything the world owes me

I tell that to myself and I agree

I’m caught in a dream so what

you don’t know what I’m goin’ through

I’m right in between so I’ll

I’ll just play along with you

Well I’m runnin’ through the world with a gun in my back

tryin’ to catch a ride in that cadillac

Thought I was livin’ but you can’t never tell

what I thought was heaven turned out to be hell

Whoa whoa when you see me with a smile on my face

Whoa whoa then you’ll know I’m a mental case

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

I’m caught in a dream so what

I don’t know what I’m going through

I’m right in between so I’ll

I’ll just play along with you

Whoa whoa ooh ooh ooh

aah aah aah aah

oo oro oo oo oo oo