dancing on the street while weapons and army equipment could be spotted on the ground. The song ends with the opening verse, which is "Last night I had the strangest dream, I'd never dreamed before. I dreamed the world had all agreed, to put an end to war." Background "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" was initially composed by McCurdy during the spring of 1950, during a period in time in which there was an ever-looming threat of war, with a big Red Scare being spread by politicians such as Joseph McCarthy. The song was one of McCurdy's first original compositions. It was written in a period of McCurdy's life in which he resided in Canada, where he moved in 1948. It was here that McCurdy was introduced to folk music by artists such as Oscar Brand, Josh White, and Pete Seeger, a genre he would embrace on his first album by the name of Sings Canadian Folksongs in 1949. Following the release of this album, McCurdy migrated back to the United States, settling in New York City's Greenwich Village. He had a residency at a local club, where he often played together with Seeger. There he met another folk act, the Weavers, and introduced them to the song at a hotel. The Weavers quickly incorporated "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" into their live repertoire, with a live version being recorded on April 1, 1960, for their live album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall Vol. 2, released in 1963. Seeger himself also featured the song on his live repertoire. McCurdy, the Weavers, and Seeger were the first three to perform the song as the lyrics were not published for another year; McCurdy first released them in a July 1951 copy of the folk publication Sing Out! One of the earliest recordings of the track was a live recording captured at one of Seeger's Reed College performances in 1950. While not officially issued, it was widely circulated as a Bootleg recording. McCurdy would also feature the song as a staple of his live performances, having it on his setlist for a long period of time. Pete Seeger had been introduced to McCurdy in 1949, and "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" in 1950. As a result of this, the song stayed in Seeger's live repertoire. Seeger would play the song, but besides a live bootleg, it was