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Sleep Machine Lyrics
Swallowed it all and feeling fine
Give it a little bit more time
Closing in on silent mind
Wait for the perfect sign
Talking end of the couch again
Break apart at the slightest thing
How can it matter where I’ve been
Doctor I’m sinking in
Now you know everything, you come by word or wing
Turn on again
And scrape me til I’m clean inside the sleep machine
Turn on again
Static humming in either ear
Voices that won’t come clear
Remember how I got down here
Lights that burn, words that sear
I wait beneath the house for days
I try my hardest not to stay
Now you know everything, you come by word or wing
Turn on again
And scrape me til I’m clean inside the sleep machine
Turn on again
Tongue to use for counting teeth
Silences, however brief
What should bar me from relief
Something moving underneath
Oh doctor doctor please I cannot see
So what’s it take to fix someone like me
Oh yes I’ll stay, oh god, don’t mind a thing
May it burn or char or drain or sting
Give it a little bit more time
Closing in on silent mind
Wait for the perfect sign
Break apart at the slightest thing
How can it matter where I’ve been
Doctor I’m sinking in
Turn on again
And scrape me til I’m clean inside the sleep machine
Turn on again
Voices that won’t come clear
Remember how I got down here
Lights that burn, words that sear
I try my hardest not to stay
Turn on again
And scrape me til I’m clean inside the sleep machine
Turn on again
Silences, however brief
What should bar me from relief
Something moving underneath
So what’s it take to fix someone like me
Oh yes I’ll stay, oh god, don’t mind a thing
May it burn or char or drain or sting
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From J.O.Y.:
"As a teenager, I spent my fair share of hours poring over Sylvia Plath’s writing, but I always favored her poetry over her prose and The Bell Jar was foggy in my memory. Seeing someone so obviously and so directly affected by it made me revisit the novel. And I’ll say, I am also no exception to the rule: it fucked me up good and proper. It consumed me so thoroughly that when Dan Romer and I started writing what would become “Sleep Machine,” I knew there was only one idea the lyrics could explore. So what we have here is a song in which I try to explore the experience of moving from darkness into light and back again, via the power, and ultimately the impermanence, of electroconvulsive therapy treatment."