The line is definitely: "Eyelids want to close." Quoting, now:
“That song’s kind of a metaphor for closing the door on certain things from the past and moving forward,” Bridwell explains later. “The lyric actually says ‘eyelids want to close,’ but I always thought it sounded like ‘islands on the coast,’ so I named it that to screw with people. That song deals with some things that went down before we left Seattle. I liked the metaphor of an eyelid closing. It can mean a lot of things, but I thought it worked well for talking about that.”
The line is definitely: "Eyelids want to close." Quoting, now:
“That song’s kind of a metaphor for closing the door on certain things from the past and moving forward,” Bridwell explains later. “The lyric actually says ‘eyelids want to close,’ but I always thought it sounded like ‘islands on the coast,’ so I named it that to screw with people. That song deals with some things that went down before we left Seattle. I liked the metaphor of an eyelid closing. It can mean a lot of things, but I thought it worked well for talking about that.”
Link to the source: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2007/11/band-of-horses-ponies-up-on-the-pen/