Produced by Keith Forsey.  Recorded by Michael Frondelli at Westlake Audio (Los Angeles) and Oasis Recording Studio (Universal City, California). Mixed by Michael Frondelli at Oasis Recording Studio.

Bryan Adams and I originally wrote "Edge Of A Dream" for the film "Staying Alive", a "Saturday Night Fever" sequel written and directed by Sylvester Stallone (released in 1983). As I recall, our song title was lifted directly from a line of dialogue in the "Staying Alive" script (we never did see the movie).

Unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately -- our song was rejected. The film was poorly received by the press and the public. 

"Edge Of A Dream" remained "on ice" for a year or two until we played it for Aaron Russo, producer of the film "Teachers".   Aaron had Joe Cocker record it for the "Teachers" soundtrack.

Bryan and I wrote "Edge Of A Dream" at a time when we'd already had a few "hits" to our credit, and we'd become quite skilled and confident as writers. Or so we thought ...

We played the song for our friend, producer Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd) and asked him for his opinion.  Bob made an observation that, in retrospect, seemed obvious. Except to us!  Bob's comments (see below) not only prompted us to re-think the song's chorus, but we continued to apply the "Ezrin Principle" to just about every song we wrote after that.

Initially our chorus consisted of the same line of lyric and melody repeated four times, the standard "hammer it home" approach to songwriting:

              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)
              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)
              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)
              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)

It seemed just fine to us, but to Bob's experienced ear the song wasn't finished yet.  It needed something more ... not much more, but there was definitely room for improvement.

"Try changing the lyric and the melody, but only for the third line of the chorus", Bob said.  We tried a couple of different options, and eventually settled on the following:

              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)
              On the edge of a dream (you know we are)
              We've been waiting for this chance to be free
              We're on the edge of a dream (you know we are)

Very subtle ... but it worked, and I believe it improved the song immeasurably.  Thank you Bob!

I met Joe Cocker at the film's premiere in Los Angeles and I took the opportunity to thank him for recording our song.

Joe's a very sweet and humble man ... he actually apologized for his vocal performance on "Edge Of A Dream". He said he'd had the flu the day of the vocal session, but the film deadline forced him to deliver a performance regardless. He said he did the best he could, under the circumstances.

I told him, "I wish I could sing that well on a good day!"