We go back 21 years to 1988 when this particular Conway Twitty album was brand new. The single that was on the radio and in the stores prior to the album's release, "Goodbye Time", was unlike anything Conway had recorded to that point. It featured the piano as the main instrument and the vocal performance was one of a kind. This is just one example of how Conway put everything he had into a song...hearing it was like listening to a drama unfold in front of your ears. It was a story about a man and woman breaking up although the man doesn't want it to happen but if she won't change her mind given everything he's attempted at trying to convince her to stay then for the two of them it's goodbye time. As far as chart data is concerned, the single reached the Top-10 in the spring/early summer of 1988. The summer of 1988 saw the release and success of "Saturday Night Special"...according to what I've read, the single created a controversy due to the way the pawnbroker in the song was depicted plus there was objections surrounding the song's overall violent under-tone, after all, the song is about a pistol. The single reached the Top-10, but barely...in the Cashbox chart it peaked at #6. The song is about a man and a woman who visit a pawnshop and fall in love while meeting there. She was there to sell her wedding ring and he was there to buy a pistol. The broker in the song offers a small amount for the ring...and the man uses the pistol he just bought to intimidate the broker into giving the woman a more higher value for the ring. They leave the shop and head off to Texas to presumably get married.
The third and final single from this album arrived late in 1988 and climbed up into the Top-5 in early 1989. The title of the album, Still in Your Dreams serves as part of the title of the opening song, "I Wish I Was Still In Your Dreams". The song is another dramatic reading of a man who see's a woman after a long separation. When I hear the song I always think of Times Square in New York...picturing a man seeing a woman sitting at a table inside a cafe. The song doesn't say what caused the couple to break-up only that the man wishes he was still in her dreams. Vince Gill provides the soaring harmony on this song as well as on all the songs.
Aside from the singles, the album contains a mix of songs, most of them on the heartbreak side and some not. "Throwing Good Love After Bad" is a song about a man trying to find the right woman. It has a slow ballad feel much like "Goodbye Time" and "I Don't Remember Going Crazy", which is track number seven. "Your Loving Side" is an up-tempo poppish song with a narrative passage while the album's closer, "When You're Cool The Sun Shines All The Time", is a rip-roaring rocker/blues song. If the clip is still available you can see Conway perform this song during a TV appearance that's been uploaded onto You Tube. Look up his name and the song title and the clip will pop up after the search.
"Jenny's Souvenirs" is a sad song about a married couple with a clever twist. My vote for song that could have been a hit single but yet wasn't released as one goes to "They Only Come Out at Night". The entire song...the sound...the style in which it's delivered...screams 'hit song' in my ears but it wasn't issued. I think there was a policy at MCA during the mid to late 1980's that only three songs were issued as commercial singles from albums and that's it...unless Conway only wanted three per album.
Conway rarely did re-makes of his previous songs...there were a few exceptions, though; back in 1976 he re-recorded five of his rock and roll songs for a project called Now and Then which featured five newly recorded songs on side two. He recorded several duets with Loretta of previous solo songs...both he and Loretta together recorded versions of "It's Only Make Believe", "I Changed My Mind", "I've Already Loved You In My Mind", "I'm So Used To Loving You", "Working Girl"...Conway had also recorded solo versions of "The Letter" and "I Still Believe In Waltzes", two singles that became huge hits for him and Loretta. Another occasion where Conway re-recorded some of his former hits came along in 1982 when he put together the mammoth two-part collection called Conway Twitty Classics, Volume One and Conway Twitty Classics, Volume Two. The project featured 20 re-recordings of a lot of his huge hits from the 1970's. The songs have been released several times by Sony Music on a wide variety of compilation CD's featuring Conway. Chances are a lot of the CD's currently on the market released by labels other than MCA which feature Conway are likely to feature his 1982 re-recordings than the original recordings. What does all of this mean when it comes to this 1988 album you may ask. Well, on this album, it features a song Conway originally recorded in the mid 1960's, "If You Were Mine To Lose", which he also wrote. So, we're treated to an updated version of that song on this album.
1. I Wish I Was Still in Your Dreams
2. Your Loving Side
3. Goodbye Time
4. If You Were Mine To Lose
5. Throwing Good Love After Bad
6. Saturday Night Special
7. I Don't Remember Going Crazy
8. They Only Comes Out at Night
9. Jenny's Souvenirs
10. When You're Cool The Sun Shines All The Time
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