When I Dream of Michelangelo

In December 2008, it would also be serviced to the Adult Alternative (or Triple A) radio format as the third airplay single this era, following up the chart-topping "Come Around".

[1] The track shares a lyric from the band's earlier single "Angels of the Silences", from which the song's title originates: "I dream of Michelangelo when I’m lying in my bed".

Which is why that line shows up later in "Angels of the Silences" because I still didn’t understand what "When I Dream of Michelangelo" was about; but I had that image.

I just hadn’t able to get the song out or understand what it was really about.Duritz explained the song's evolution more elaborately in a March 2008 interview with James Campion:[3] I had this idea of Michelangelo lying on his back painting the Creation: God reaching out to Adam, and in my mind not being able to quite reach God.

So the idea crops up in Angels of the Silences, but as I changed, experienced more, and understood what the song was going to be about; it became about the constant struggle of the artist to reach for something divine, to create something out of nothing, which is the original divine act; there was a void and let there be light, making something out of nothing.