Feel Your Heart Break With Travis Tritt’s “Tell Me I Was Dreaming”

Country singer Travis Tritt poured his everything out in his 1995 hit song “Tell Me I Was Dreaming.” And let us warn you: It’s so heartbreaking, you’d literally feel your chest throbbing from the pain. 

This track, written by Tritt along with Bruce Ray Brown and produced by Gregg Brown, was the second of the trilogy of Travis Tritt songs — the first was “Anymore” (1991), and the third and last was  “If I Lost You” (1998). It was released as the fourth and final single off his album Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof under Warner Bros. Nashville. It reached the runner-up position on the US country chart and nabbed a third on the Canadian country chart. 

Meaning Behind the Song 

As a single, “Tell Me I Was Dreaming” was a painful break-up song where the protagonist was still in the denial phase, hoping for a reconciliation with his lover. 

In the first verse of the song, Travis Tritt sang of how he woke up that morning, ready for a new day, only to realize that his lover was gone. His voice was full of agony as he hit the chorus, singing, “Tell me I was dreamin’ / That you didn’t leave me here to cry.” He then continued, in denial, telling himself that she didn’t say she didn’t love him anymore. That it was just his imagination playing on him. 

In the second verse, he’s still confused, and all he wanted was to go back to his dream. As the song progressed, he kept convincing himself that it was all just a dream and his lover didn’t leave him. Up until the end, he was holding onto it.

But as part of the trilogy, this song took a much more painful turn.

It turned from a break-up into a loss. That is, in the song’s official music video, his lover dies. And the grief he felt was not simply from being left behind, but being left behind and alone for good. This time, there was no hope for any reconciliation. 

Listen to Travis Tritt’s “Tell Me I Was Dreaming” in the video below. Check out the rest of the trilogy as well for the whole story.