COIN Makes Their First Steps into the Uncanny Valley With “I Think I Met You In A Dream”

By Julia Norkus

Indie pop band COIN released “I Think I Met You In A Dream,” the third single from their upcoming album Uncanny Valley, Feb. 18, 2022. 

COIN (made up of members Chase Lawrence [he/him], Ryan Winnen [he/him], and Joe Memmel [he/him]) just came off of their Rainbow Dreamland tour, which I had the pleasure of seeing at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. COIN’s sound is unlike anything I’ve ever heard, with elements of funk, soul, pop, and punk all wrapped together in a poetic package. Their ability to connect with their audience touches the soul, and they easily performed one of my favorite live shows to date.

Their new single, “I Think I Met You In A Dream,” presents a new take on their classic sound. It incorporates elements of their traditional style into a folk-like tune about meeting an ideal someone that you feel you’ve known for your whole life. The love song talks about the feeling of seeing someone and immediately recognizing them, which falls in line with the idea of meeting someone in your dreams. The song reveals later on that dreams don’t always come true.

Lead singer Chase Lawrence sings the lines, “I’m really gonna blow your mind/Baby looking over time/I gotta get a dead man off my chest/One touch and I know your kiss,” telling a story of being with someone who feels familiar. This idea is a very calming one, one that lets us know that we are safe and understood in love, by someone who feels like home and familiarity. 

The song continues to describe this feeling, with the line, “The way you move is like a distant memory,” but as the song progresses, it begins to sound like this person of comfort and home is more of a fabrication, something that we yearn for and envision for ourselves, but find unattainable. The background instrumentation creates a gentle and comforting feeling within the listener, using various acoustic string instruments and minimal drums to create a bouncy, dream-like sequence that gives off the feeling of somewhere we’ve been before with someone we feel is perfect and has always been right by our side. This idea of finding someone perfect for each of us is nearly impossible, as we are all flawed and we can’t expect those around us to be anything other than that.

It seems as though Lawrence is describing his ideal person, more and more as the song goes on, and the dreamy undertones make it feel less and less like reality, as if we are fading into his daydreams and visions along with him. Thus, this dream-like storyline is something we all can relate to, whether it be envisioning a perfect someone who we might never meet, or meeting someone who feels like home, COIN perfectly encapsulates the human experience of loving and dreaming and wishing.