Dream Child (A Christmas Dream)

Album: The Christmas Attic (1998)
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Songfacts®:

  • Trans-Siberian Orchestra's studio masterminds are Paul O'Neill and Jon Oliva. O'Neill calls "Dream Child" his favorite song on The Christmas Attic album. He explained its message to Christianity Today: "The narrator sings about a dream encounter with the Christ child. I always thought I completely gave it away with the line:

    And I said to the Child, 'Do your hands they still bleed
    After all of this time, do you think there's still need?'
    But the Child only smiled and said not a word
    And the snow it came down, as if it hadn't heard.

    It's just a way of saying that [Jesus] has never given up on us, even though we may have given up ourselves."
  • Trans-Siberian Orchestra re-recorded this song in 2010 with Tim Hockenberry on lead vocals. Hockenberry caught national attention with his cover of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful" on America's Got Talent.

    The singer also treasures a special gift from Paul O'Neill. He told Marin magazine in 2010: "Paul O’Neill, the creator of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, knew I loved books on the Holocaust, so he gave me a first edition signed print of my favorite book by Elie Wiesel, called NIGHT, and inside of it was an actual thousand-dollar bill to be used as a bookmark to always remind me of the value of the written word. Paul is a very generous man."

    That bill can be spotted in a martini glass in Hockenberry's "Hard Times" video.

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