Nashville’s Walker Reinhardt sweeps listeners into the euphoric first blush of new love on “Dreaming,” a lush, sweetly spellbound reverie that makes romance feel weightless, radiant, and wholeheartedly alive.

for fans of Father John Misty, Lord Huron, Wilco

Stream: “Dreaming” – Walker Reinhardt

Falling in love can rearrange the world in an instant – softening its edges, brightening its colors, and making the future feel suddenly wide open.

In that first rush of wonder, devotion becomes its own dream state: Weightless, glowing, and almost too beautiful to question. Walker Reinhardt’s “Dreaming” lives fully inside that euphoric haze, wrapping the rebirth of new love in lush harmonies, glistening guitars, and a classic pop warmth that feels both timeless and tender.

Enchanting and sweetly spellbound, “Dreaming” captures love at its most transportive – the moment when another person’s presence makes life feel newly possible, and all you want is to stay suspended in that feeling for as long as it will hold you.

I’m nestled closely
Curled in your vine
Were floating slowly
Down this river of sky

Feeling high
I just want you here for all my life
And I never wanna search again

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Dreaming,” the enchanting new single from Walker Reinhardt, the creative identity of Nashville-based songwriter, producer, mixer, and multi-instrumentalist Johnny Hanson. Arriving as his second single of the year following January’s “Darling,” “Dreaming” finds Reinhardt leaning into a golden, emotionally charged pop craftsmanship that feels lovingly built from the inside out – a sweeping, cinematic reverie full of warmth, sweetness, and wide-eyed romantic wonder.

I must be dreamin’
You have you always hangin’ around
I’ll just go on sleepin’
No one’s gonna take what I’ve found

Hanson has spent much of his life helping other people’s songs find their fullest shape. Originally from California, he has built a wide-ranging career as a guitarist, vocalist, and behind-the-scenes creative force, collaborating with artists including Christina Perri, Molly Kate Kestner, Brynn Elliott, Brett Landin, Paris Carney, and Shannon Purser, while also seeing his work appear across film, television, and national campaigns. He has performed around the world, brought his musical insight to the screen as Bradley Cooper’s guitar coach for A Star Is Born, and earned critical attention with his earlier project, Melanoid – but Walker Reinhardt is where Hanson steps fully into his own frame, channeling years of craft, instinct, and emotional intuition into music that feels intimate, radiant, and deeply handmade.

“Dreaming” blooms from the inside out, its opening lines placing us immediately inside a love so enveloping it feels almost botanical, celestial, and weightless all at once:

“I’m nestled closely / Curled in your vine / We’re floating slowly / Down this river of sky.”

Reinhardt writes romance as total immersion – not just a feeling to describe, but a landscape to enter. His voice carries that surrender with a soft ache, drifting over glistening guitar and brushed percussion as strings begin to gather around him, deepening the song’s sense of lift and longing. It is vulnerable in its confession, yet grand in its arrangement – a private fantasy rendered in full, dazzling color.

The lineage is easy to hear: The sun-drenched harmonies and melodic sweetness nod lovingly toward The Beach Boys, while the ornate, slightly baroque pop sweep recalls Father John Misty at his most romantic and dream-drunk. But “Dreaming” never feels like an exercise in reference points. Reinhardt uses those touchstones as atmosphere, not architecture, building his own suspended world through violin, cello, keys, drums, and that shimmering 12-string guitar. The result is lush without feeling crowded, nostalgic without feeling trapped in the past, and sentimental without losing its pulse.

We’ve just been born
All things are new
Life is a stained glass
We see through

Second sight
I just want you here for all my life
And I never wanna search again

By the time he reaches the chorus – “I must be dreamin’ / To have you always hangin’ around / I’ll just go on sleepin’ / No one’s gonna take what I’ve found” – the song has fully surrendered to its own spell. Love becomes a chosen unreality, a place worth protecting even if it might be too good to last. That tension gives “Dreaming” its emotional heat: The sweetness is real, but so is the fear of waking up. Reinhardt lets both live side by side, wrapping new devotion in stacked harmonies and strings that seem to rise like sunlight through stained glass.

I must be dreamin’
To have you always hangin’ around
I’ll just go on sleepin’
No one’s gonna take what I’ve found

That dream state is exactly where Reinhardt wanted his song to live: In the rush before reason catches up, when love feels less like a choice than an atmosphere – all lift, color, and disbelief. “Dreaming” understands the bliss of that moment, but it also understands the small tremor underneath it: The awareness that anything this beautiful can feel fragile simply because it feels so rare.

“It’s about falling in love and feeling like you’re floating on a cloud,” Walker Reinhardt tells Atwood Magazine. “It all feels like a dream and you feel some sort of rebirth. The world is suddenly full of new possibilities. At the same time, it can feel too good to be true, and if it is, you almost don’t want to know. You want to stay in that euphoric state for as long as possible.”

That desire to remain suspended – to keep the dream intact, to delay the moment when gravity returns – gives “Dreaming” its glow. Reinhardt does not treat romance as a neat arrival point, but as a state of wonder: Overwhelming, renewing, and just mysterious enough to make surrender feel like the only honest response.

“Dreaming” is hazy romance at its finest: Soft-focus and full-hearted, yet meticulously shaped in every frame.

Love songs will never go out of fashion because love itself never stops asking to be rediscovered – in new voices, new arrangements, new moments of vulnerability and awe. The world will never have enough songs that make devotion feel this alive, this consuming, this worth protecting; Reinhardt’s gift is in honoring those feelings without sanding down their enormity.

What makes “Dreaming” so special is the way it gives euphoria dimension. Reinhardt does not simply sing about being swept away – he builds the sensation from the ground up, letting every harmony, string line, key, and shimmer of guitar deepen the spell. It is a testament not only to his craft and vision, but to the feeling itself: The impossible brightness of finding another person and watching life bloom around them in vivid, visceral color. “Dreaming” invites us back into that brightness, and for a few seductive minutes, it lets us believe in it completely.

There’s some sweet magic
In the way you catch my eye
You look like heaven
Even though you never try

That is where the song lingers longest – in the part of love that makes the future feel newly open, the part that softens the world’s edges and turns devotion into a place we can briefly inhabit. Hazy, heartfelt, and full of classic pop radiance, “Dreaming” captures romance before the spell breaks, while everything is still weightless, glowing, and almost too beautiful to question.

Stream “Dreaming” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and dive into our full conversation with Walker Reinhardt below as he opens up about the song’s decade-long journey, the Brian Wilson influence woven into his musical DNA, the vivid romantic vision behind its lyrics, and the euphoric state he hopes listeners can step into – or return to – through the music.

I must be dreamin’
To have you always hangin’ around
I’ll just keep on sleepin’
No one’s gonna take what I’ve found

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:: stream/purchase Dreaming here ::

:: connect with Walker Reinhardt here ::

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Stream: “Dreaming” – Walker Reinhardt

A CONVERSATION WITH WALKER REINHARDT

Walker Reinhardt (Johnny Hanson): I’m a producer and mixer first, and Walker Reinhardt is really my creative outlet outside of that work. I spend most of my time behind the scenes helping other artists bring their songs to life, so this project is where I get to follow my own instincts a bit more freely.

I tend to build everything from the ground up – playing the instruments, shaping the sounds, and handling the mix and master myself, it’s a space where I can really experiment without any boundaries.

Walker Reinhardt: I like to think I have pretty eclectic taste, from classical to rock music. The Beach Boys had a huge impact on me when I was very young and then it was The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Cream, The Doors, etc. then later in high school it was Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and Rufus Wainwright. I also always loved the romantic music of the 40’s-60’s like the Everly Brothers and all the crooners.

Walker Reinhardt: It’s about falling in love and feeling like you’re floating on a cloud. It all feels like a dream and you feel some sort of rebirth. The world is suddenly full of new possibilities. At the same time, it can feel too good to be true, and if it is, you almost don’t want to know. You want to stay in that euphoric state for as long as possible.

Walker Reinhardt: Well… that makes me smile, haha. As I said earlier, The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson were really my first love when it comes to music, so I think that music is in my DNA. I actually wrote the song almost 10 years ago. I had started recording it years ago and it kind of just sat there for a while. I was never truly happy with it, until I revisited it this last year and started tweaking, re-tracked the drums and bass and recorded some strings and it suddenly came to life for me again. There are a few elements that stand out to me which is the heavy vibrato effect on the 12-string electric guitar as well as the Omnichord adding some dream like textures. The song was all tracked in my studio with me playing all the instruments except drums played by my friend, Kiel Feher, who is always amazing. The Cello parts were played by Cara Fox, who brilliantly brought my string arrangements to life. Also, shoutout to my good friend, Dan Ballard, who engineered the strings at his amazing studio, gold pacific studios, in Nashville.

Walker Reinhardt: The feeling of being completely enraptured by someone in the best possible way.

Walker Reinhardt: I hope they can relate to the feeling and if not, I hope they get a chance to experience that feeling. Or maybe it will take them back to that place or at the very least they can just soak in the vibes.

Walker Reinhardt: Well, I just finished up producing an EP for country singer/songwriter Brett Landin, which is such a great vibe. It’s called Roots and I’d love to recommend that to your readers. Some other artists that I’m regularly listening to are Hohnen Ford, Kenny Sharp and Lera Lynn.

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:: stream/purchase Dreaming here ::

:: connect with Walker Reinhardt here ::

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Stream: “Dreaming” – Walker Reinhardt

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