Sleep Well, My Angel

i love this song! it's my favorite on the album.

Watching you sleep for so long Knowing that I can't turn the rain into sun Anymore -it's kind of saying that you can't turn their tears into smiles anymore.

As you sit there all alone I just want to come home

But you see the shelter as the storm Holding wind to keep you warm You are everything to me This is why I have to leave So sleep well my angel -it's about being in love with someone and wanting to be with them but you want to protect them so you leave them.

It's about an abusive parent perhaps? Because the term "sleep well, my angel" suggests that idea.

And I think its where the parent uses abuse to show love. And then realizing what they have done, they leave in order to protect the child from the parent.

But thats just my opinion of the song.

i love this song! it's my favorite on the album.

Watching you sleep for so long Knowing that I can't turn the rain into sun Anymore -it's kind of saying that you can't turn their tears into smiles anymore.

As you sit there all alone I just want to come home

But you see the shelter as the storm Holding wind to keep you warm You are everything to me This is why I have to leave So sleep well my angel -it's about being in love with someone and wanting to be with them but you want to protect them so you leave them.

I believe this song is about Ben leaving evanescence and what it meant form him to do that, speccialy after seeing the letter he published explaining everything about his departure.

Some parta of the lyrics show that pretty well:

"Afraid you might wake to see The monster that had to leave"

In the letter, Ben says that he had become a jerk, and he was hurting his friend Amy. So, he decided to leave.

I personally think it's about someone with...maybe an issue, addiction, disorder of some sorts, and then person2 embracing them, trying to help them...but they don't want help, so they keep going back to where they started. Thus would be hurting/killing person2 on the inside. So person2 leaves because they can't deal with the stress.

I actually feel this is a mother speaking to her dead son/daughter. Most likely from a drug overdose or some other bad road.

"Watching you sleep for so long, knowing that I can't turn the rain into sun anymore" ---As a child, her mother could make her child smile, but now they grew up and made mistakes that hurt and the mother wishes she could 'turn the rain into sun'.

"I've given you all that I am. Now I stand here too scared to hold your hand. Afraid you might wake to see the monster that had to leave" ---She taught her young as best she could, but in the end, the child falls down a bad road and the mother is slightly scared of her child becoming a monster because of the choices they made.

"Cause you see the shelter as the storm. Holding wind to keep you warm. You are everything to me. This is why I have to leave. So sleep well, my angel" ---I can empathize with this part. 'you see the shelter as the storm'....when you get to a certain age, you hate your parents. You want to get the hell out of their house and go out on your own...but in the end, family is always there for you when nothing else is. We start to see family as the problem, but eventually start to realize that IS the true shelter. As for the rest of the chorus, Parents know they have to let their children go(this is why I have t leave)...and even sometimes let them make those mistakes to help them learn. Even though it hurts the mother to watch her child suffer.

"Under the ash of the lies. Something beautiful once here now dies. And the tears burn my eyes. As you sit there all alone. I just want to come home." ---The mother admitting to herself that her child lied and slowly lost their innocence (something beautiful once here now dies). The mother now showing her loss of composure at the funeral. 'as you sit there all alone' in that coffin. She just wants her little innocent baby back.

"I'm sorry" --One of the smallest but most important lines. Parents have to let their kid go and learn about life through mistakes. But the mother never wanted this. She wanted to stop her child from going further down this road, even though the child saw the shelter as the storm. The mother's last wish is for her angel to sleep well, away from the dark road they fell into.

Kinda long, but I love this song and it makes me think of how I always saw my parents as the storm. Now I truly realize family is everything you ever need.

i love this song

This song seems like it was written from my mother's heart when she sits in bed and cries in the middle of the night thinking about my brother who we lost to suicide three years ago.

I'm 35 right now. At the time, he was 30, nearly done with a Ph.D. from Oxford University. He was Bipolar I and absolutely brilliant, her "angel." She constantly blames herself, "I'm sorry." And tries to think of the beautiful times, especially when he was a child, like previous comments implied about the innocence of a child and how little ones like to build forts.

Eventually, illness and adulthood take childlike magic and turn forts to decay.

When her thoughts of him haunt her at night, she'll say out loud, "Honey, I need to sleep. Go to sleep, baby. I'll talk to you in the morning."

This song was just a sublime mix of the beautiful, the terrifying, the deep sorrow and the tragedy that is losing a loved one to suicide....at least for me.....especially from a mother's point-of-view.

I've thought a long time about the meaning of this song. Doesn't seem to be about a love story nor drug addiction. To me, it actually seems to be about an abusive parent. Here’s what I see in the lyrics :

Watching you sleep for so long Knowing that I can't turn the rain into sun Anymore

Watching someone sleep usually is something that parents would do in a protective way. But here, the person is full of sorrow and regrets, because something happened and they can’t take it back.

I've given you all that I am Now I stand here too scared to hold your hand

The narrator loves the child very much, gave them everything they could, but now they realize they've been abusive, they are so ashamed and afraid of rejection that they wouldn’t even touch the child again. Also, the child is still sleeping, and the person has to leave, so they don’t want to wake them up.

Afraid you might wake to see The monster that had to leave

This is probably the most complex part of the song. I guess the narrator is that monster, and that they have to leave before the child wake’s up, so they don’t have to see ‘the monster that had to leave’.

Cause you see the shelter as the storm Holding wind to keep you warm

Home is where the danger is for the child. And this danger is in the family.

You are everything to me This is why I have to leave So sleep well, my angel

« My angel » really sounds like these words are adressed to a child. And the parent now knows they’ve been a danger to the child, that they’ll have to leave (because of prison, or simply moral obligation). Still, the parent still loves the child more that anything, as if they didn’t realize what mistakes they where doing. All they want is to not haunt the dreams of the child anymore.

Under the ash of the lies Something beautiful once here now dies

« Something beautiful » could be their life, their family, the relationship between the parent and the child. And the lies could concern the other parent, or the lies said to the child, because they can’t know at a young age that violence isn’t normal.

And the tears burn my eyes As you sit there all alone I just want to come home

« All alone » is a feeling a child would get when a parent leaves. Doesn’t sound like a person after a break up, because after a break up, you still can go and see people – as for a child, they parents is all they have when they are young. And the parent has to leave that home and can’t come back.

I'm sorry

Obviously, this shows it’s about something the narrator has done.

To me, this song is about all the contradiction between loving a child and hurting it. It certainly isn’t a love song to me, because it seems a lot more serious that cheating and breaking up.