Traffic - Dear Mr. Fantasy

First performance: 00/09/1968


Coverinfo

Bruce covered the song only once:
 
 
1968-09-00 Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ 
 
Springsteen (along with fellow Earth-band members John Graham and Michael Burke) entered Ocean County College in September 1968. Bruce ended up staying for three semesters, dropping out in December 1969 shortly after his parents moved to California. Earth is believed to have performed several times at Ocean County College during the September to December 1968 period. Springsteen even contributed a piece of poetry to Seascape, the school's Literary Yearbook. The twenty-six mentioned songs are taken from the only known Earth-era repertoire listing. The document is likely to have been created by Springsteen in September or October 1968. The amount of tracks displayed, their sequencing, plus the header and numbering notation by Bruce, all point to this as being an inventory of Earth's live repertoire of 'cover' material. For this reason it is of greater historical significance than an individual gig setlist, particularly in that no Earth audio is circulating. A few of these songs are performance hold-overs from the The Castiles-era. Since Earth was a three-piece band it's hardly surprising that material from both Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (the era's two premier three-piece bands) are abundantly represented. 
 
 
  
photo credit Billy Smith
 

Songinfo

"Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a rock song by Traffic from their 1967 album, Mr. Fantasy. An extended live version (10:57) of the song also appears on the 1971 Traffic album Welcome to the Canteen. The lyrics were written by Jim Capaldi, while the music was written by Steve Winwood and Chris Wood. Steve Winwood played the song at Eric Clapton's 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival and the song appears on the festival DVD. The song was included on the setlist of Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton's joint tour in 2009. A live recording appears on the album Live from Madison Square Garden. Former Traffic member Dave Mason performed the song live and provided the lead vocal, guitar and harmonica.
 
 
 

Bruce on the artist

Lyrics

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years