Why "Bad Dreams" by Cannons is a relationship closure song

The thing about music is that you choose what you take away from it.

I've talked about Cannons before and how they impacted the music scene to make a name for themselves through the pandemic. Fire For You is a great tune about how drained you feel putting your energy into someone who wouldn't do the same. Hurricane is a fantastic anthem about making a comeback, but Bad Dreams doesn't get enough credit for how it's a softer and stronger song than the rest.

To the core of the song, Bad Dreams is about coming to terms with the end of the relationship even after it already ended for an undetermined amount of time. But it's not elaborated on what caused the breakup or what happened to make the relationship unsalvageable. The realization of the end of the relationship hits differently for people that have their reasons for hanging onto hope or seeing it through themselves to let go.

The thing about leaving a relationship...is that there are moments you remember about the relationship until after you left that person.

The story we know about the song is about the singer having to come to terms that her relationship is over, and it wasn't as good as she thought it was.

I couldn't think of the right words

Now it's just too late

Now you're somebody's baby

So I'll be on my way

Relationships that weren't meant to be are like bad dreams. Remembering those moments feel like recollecting a nightmare while you are awake. Unfortunately in some cases for people that get into bad relationships, the reality of the relationship can feel like a bad dream when we start to remember stuff that we forgot.

I wish that somebody would wake me

Don't like this feeling, won't you shake me?

'Cause any more might break me

And you'll never know

The plot of the song doesn't specify whose fault it was in the relationship. It's not specified as to who or what ended the relationship, but there is residual pain that haunts the singer. Unfortunately, some people that end the relationship don't get the chance to tell their former partner about the pain that they went through.

Those lyrics are a perfect definition of the feeling of going through the motions of having to cope with all the things that remain to be unspoken.

On the outside, it's hard to know how the person is doing with coping with their relationship. How hard it was the leave them and how it has been to move on.

This song as well as Fire For You do express the grit of betrayal at the end of what is supposed to be a good thing. Moving on and showing how it's not as easy as it seems in the long run for the months or years after the relationship.

Bad Relationships feel like a nightmare in real life. When I was emotionally abused my by ex-boyfriend I couldn't understand why such cruelty was happening, it shouldn't be happening. Now I look at that relationship still shocked that things I couldn't fathom in my worst nightmares happened to me. In the months after the relationship was over, there were bits of traumatic situations that resurfaced making the coping process harder.

"Why can't you shake me"

It's an unpopular truth that there are people that you let go and it's harder to keep them from your mind when unexpected reminders come up. But that's the thing about living in a bad dream is that you'll get to wake up from it.

the theme of Bad Dreams has a definite theme but doesn't need a definitive answer because we've all been through bad relationships. People can use this song as a fill-in-the-blank to insert their problem in the song and feel understood about the pain they have to get through on their own until it stops hurting.