40 Here Lies Love The title of Byrne’s concept album is derived from a disturbing scene in the movie “Imelda” (2003). Imelda stood beside the preserved corpse of Ferdinand Marcos encased in glass and said: “In his tombstone it says Filipino. In my tombstone, I would like to have inscribed ‘Here Lies Love.’ But really, here lies love.” [Imelda then gazed at her husband’s corpse]. This scene, both morbid and tender, would indeed illicit curiosity from viewers, especially from those who are not as familiar with Imelda’s strange performances. According to Byrne, his interest in Imelda began after seeing this movie. “The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves?” (Byrne 2010). The question posed by Byrne reveals that the production of “Here Lies Love” is an attempt to retell and re-stage the narrative of the Imelda myth. I posit that this album reveals Byrne’s desire to understand Imelda’s desires. In the loose sense that desires are comprised of dreams, the album is an attempt to comprehend Imelda through her dreams, which Byrne translated into words and music. Additionally, “Here Lies Love” incorporates the dreams of Estrella Cumpas alongside Imelda’s. The concept album may thus be read as product of dreams—the dreams of Imelda/Estrella—as well as the dreams of the Western writer-producer as represented by Byrne. From the subject used to the form it takes, initial assumptions regarding “Here Lies Love” as a cultural product can already be argued: the choice of subject is a kind of political intervention because of the subject’s significance in history; any claim to authenticity or truth in terms of representation is flimsy and suspicious; and most importantly; the project romanticizes (literally, rendered as music) and commodifies (since the album is sold) political history. From these assumptions, this paper will read “Here Lies Love” as a product of dreams that operate as fantasies within the global Western dreamwork. Global-Feminized Dreamworld Imelda’s life story essentially narrates the rise to power of a beautiful barrio girl turned First Lady, the typical rags-to-riches biography that partly explains the persistence of Imelda’s popular appeal. “Here Lies Love” sings and narrates the fulfillment, and the loss, of Imelda’s dreams of power and prestige. Certainly, Imelda’s dreams may be understood in the whimsical sense of dreams as wishes, but “to the extent that dreams fuel and further the logics of the dominant global order, they perform the