Bo Menart’s Bowie reverie comes full circle on “When I Live My Dream”
Some songs aren’t just heard — they imprint themselves on your soul, threading their melodies through the years of your life until you finally find the right moment to sing them back to the world. For Bo Menart, that moment arrives in stunning form with “When I Live My Dream”, a shimmering, heartfelt cover of one of David Bowie’s earliest and most overlooked pop ballads, originally released in 1967. For Menart, though, this is more than a cover. It’s a closing of a decades-long creative loop, a personal love letter to the song that first ignited his artistic spark in a Cleveland dining room nearly six decades ago.
The origin story is pure music folklore. In 1967, a teenage Menart found himself at the home of a British radio host, where he stumbled upon a promotional LP of Bowie’s self-titled debut on Deram Records. That dining room moment was lightning in a bottle — a melody that instantly enchanted him, setting a course for a life spent chasing and creating music. Though he couldn’t take that promo copy home, he ordered his own the next day, and in many ways, the rest of his life followed the grooves of that record.
What makes Menart’s “When I Live My Dream” so compelling is how deftly it balances reverence and reinvention. Bowie’s original was a whimsical, orchestral pop confection, a product of swinging London’s pastel-hued optimism. Menart preserves that sense of longing and theatricality but filters it through his own weathered, soulful sensibility. His vocals — rugged, intimate, and passionately nuanced — imbue the lyrics with a lived-in weight that only time can bestow.
Gone is the florid pomp of Deram-era production; in its place is an arrangement marked by rich acoustics, beautifully layered strings, and restrained, tasteful percussion. Menart’s core ensemble — bassist-vocalist Larry Antonino, drummer Darren Elpant, and guitarist Craig T Fall — deserve immense credit here. Fall’s orchestral arrangement is particularly breathtaking, elevating the track from simple nostalgia to something transcendent.
Placed as the final track on Menart’s latest album, The Trane Mob — his follow-up to 2019’s Out of the Woodshed — this rendition serves as a poignant, powerful curtain call. The track’s emotional depth and outstanding lyricism linger long after the final notes fade, closing the record not with a bang, but with a tender promise.
Bo Menart isn’t chasing trends or chart placements with this one — he’s offering listeners a piece of his own history, refracted through the lens of time and experience. In doing so, he delivers not just one of the most stirring Bowie covers in recent memory, but a song that stands confidently on its own as a testament to the enduring power of melody, memory, and the dreams we carry with us.
It’s such a beautiful rendition of such a classic, and with that, we overwhelmingly urge everyone out there to give it a spin. You can listen in, follow along, and of course stay tuned for more by clicking those important links below.
Listen to “When I Live My Dream”
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