Delicate spokes of arpeggiated guitar swirl above a becalming, eyelid-heavy backing track while in the foreground pesky sibilant percussion bubbles and boils like a swarm of robotic mosquitoes attempting to awaken a sleeping giant.
Though sleeping in seems an adroit metaphor for suicide, as both are typically pre-planned, conscious choices to remain unconscious (excepting faulty alarm clocks), the wonderful sparseness of the lyric also allows for a warning against (or acceptance of) a passive approach to life or artistic creation.
Specific interpretations depend on the perceived degree of sarcasm from the narrator in the line that begins “What commitment, what grace . . .” including disappointment, bewilderment, neutral acceptance or even fascination with a friend’s suicide (or hospitalization for depression). In this regard the key line may be found just prior: “but I don’t even wonder why” – if he was very disappointed with a close friend’s lethargy or shocked by a suicide, he would absolutely wonder, replaying recent interactions in his mind. However, while this suggests neutral acceptance as most likely, the lyric provides no proof this is/was a close friend, the fact of which might color our judgment.
If the narrator didn’t/doesn’t know the person well, we might wonder whether the “empty walls” belong to our slumbering subject (or artist?) or an observer (fan?) who can no longer enjoy (and display) the creator’s works after his “last . . . efforts.” While this may be a stretch, it’s possible the tune concerns passive approaches to life or art, as “dreaming as the evening falls” combined with sleeping in doesn’t require death, just going to bed early and getting up late -- a dog’s life.
Delicate spokes of arpeggiated guitar swirl above a becalming, eyelid-heavy backing track while in the foreground pesky sibilant percussion bubbles and boils like a swarm of robotic mosquitoes attempting to awaken a sleeping giant.
Though sleeping in seems an adroit metaphor for suicide, as both are typically pre-planned, conscious choices to remain unconscious (excepting faulty alarm clocks), the wonderful sparseness of the lyric also allows for a warning against (or acceptance of) a passive approach to life or artistic creation.
Specific interpretations depend on the perceived degree of sarcasm from the narrator in the line that begins “What commitment, what grace . . .” including disappointment, bewilderment, neutral acceptance or even fascination with a friend’s suicide (or hospitalization for depression). In this regard the key line may be found just prior: “but I don’t even wonder why” – if he was very disappointed with a close friend’s lethargy or shocked by a suicide, he would absolutely wonder, replaying recent interactions in his mind. However, while this suggests neutral acceptance as most likely, the lyric provides no proof this is/was a close friend, the fact of which might color our judgment.
If the narrator didn’t/doesn’t know the person well, we might wonder whether the “empty walls” belong to our slumbering subject (or artist?) or an observer (fan?) who can no longer enjoy (and display) the creator’s works after his “last . . . efforts.” While this may be a stretch, it’s possible the tune concerns passive approaches to life or art, as “dreaming as the evening falls” combined with sleeping in doesn’t require death, just going to bed early and getting up late -- a dog’s life.