Alan Parsons

Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several significant albums, including the Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be, and the art rock band Ambrosia's debut album Ambrosia as well as Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor. Parsons' own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been successful commercially.

Career

In October 1967, at the age of 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, where he earned his first credit on the LP Abbey Road. He became a regular there, engineering such projects as Paul McCartney's Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, five albums by the Hollies, and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, for which he received his first Grammy Award nomination. He was known for doing more than what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineer's duties. He considered himself to be a recording director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick contributed to film. This is apparent in his work with Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat", where Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Al Stewart onto the charts. It is also heard in Parsons' influence on the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "The Air That I Breathe", sharp departures from their popular 1960s hits "Stay", "Just One Look", "Stop! Stop! Stop!" or "Bus Stop". Parsons was also known to have swapped shifts during the engineering of Dark Side of the Moon so he could work entirely on the project.

Alan Parsons (badminton)

Alan Parsons is a former badminton player from South Africa. Between 1959 and 1974 he won twenty-four South African national titles; nine in singles (including eight in succession from 1964 through 1971), nine in men's doubles, and six in mixed doubles. He won the German Open singles title in 1965 and the Irish Open singles title in 1967. Parsons was a leading member of the South African Thomas Cup team which reached the European zone final before losing to Denmark in 1967.

References

A Dream Within a Dream

"A Dream Within a Dream" is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849. The poem is 24 lines, divided into two stanzas. The poem questions the way one can distinguish between reality and fantasy, asking, "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"

Analysis

The poem dramatizes a confusion in watching the important things in life slip away. Realizing he cannot hold on to even one grain of sand leads to his final question that all things are a dream.

The poem references "golden sand," an image derived from the 1848 finding of gold in California.

Publication history

The poem was first published in the March 31, 1849 edition of a Boston-based periodical called Flag of Our Union. The same publication had only two weeks before first published Poe's short story "Hop-Frog." The next month, owner Frederick Gleason announced it could no longer pay for whatever articles and poems it published.

Adaptations

A Dream

A Dream may refer to:

See also

The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse

The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse is the seventh studio album by American rapper Jay-Z, released on November 12, 2002. The album serves as the sequel to his sixth album The Blueprint. Parts of the album were later reissued as The Blueprint 2.1 in 2003.

This album, like Jay-Z's previous four, debuted at #1 with over 545,000 units shipped in its first week of sales, and has sold 2,117,000 units as of February 2012 in the U.S.

Music

A Dream (Common song)

"A Dream" is a single by rapper Common from the soundtrack to Freedom Writers. It is produced by will.i.am, who also sings the song's chorus. The song heavily samples Martin Luther King Jr.'s historical "I Have a Dream" speech, which relates to the song's lyrics about racism. The single release of "A Dream" includes two will.i.am tracks, "Colors" and "Bus Ride."

Music video

The video for the single contains scenes from the Freedom Writers movie (many of which feature Hilary Swank, its lead actress), mixed with partially animated sequences featuring will.i.am singing on a podium and Common rapping in hallways and rooms in front of stylized images of both the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Television footage of the "I Have a Dream" speech is displayed on monitors throughout the video. The imagery is intended to reinforce the song's messages of perseverance in the face of discrimination, and hopes for a more racially tolerant world.

Track listing