I Had a Dream That You Were Mine is a collaborative studio album by Hamilton Leithauser, the former frontman of The Walkmen, and Rostam, the multi-instrumentalist and former producer of Vampire Weekend.

It was recorded between February 2014 and July 2016 at Rostam Batmanglij's home studio in Los Angeles, and released under both artists' names as a tribute to the collaborative albums between David Byrne and Brian Eno.

Both originally hailing from Washington D.C., they would meet up while visiting their respective families during the holiday season: "Two years in a row at Thanksgiving and Christmas we would be up in Rostam's high school bedroom.

"[1] Prior to working together on I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, Leithauser and Batmanglij collaborated on the tracks, "Alexandra" and "I Retired", from Leithauser's debut solo album, Black Hours, released in 2014: "When we did those two songs that ended up on Black Hours, we both had this mutual feeling like there was some music that we’d always wanted to make and that when we were working together we were able to make that music.

"[2] Batmanglij's production blended contemporary recording techniques with previously established musical genres: "There’s a lot of synth and sub-bass, and we have drums that almost sound intentionally programmed in parts.

An early version of "In a Blackout" was written by Leithauser for The Walkmen's seventh and final studio album, Heaven (2012): "I could never get the part sounding good where I was playing.