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[sleeptokeninterpretations]

Phonetics are cancelled, just peanut butter now

I was scrolling through Reddit doing a bit of a deep dive into Vessel's vocal technique and discovered this gem

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

got my second sleep token tattoo today so now both my thighs are dedicated to the band <3

(artist is philipbabik.tattoo on instagram)

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

The journey of dementia and grief in the album trilogy. Part 1: Sundowning

I have briefly talked about how the three albums so far could display the journey of the speaker grieving a loved one who suffered from Alzheimers. Now a few lovely people said they wanted a long version of this interpretation (thank you loves <3) so I’m going to do that. I will do this in three parts, today we’re starting with Sundowning. TW: dementia, sickness, mentions of death, grief Now, this album was the one inspiring this whole interpretation due to it’s title. Sundowning is a phenomenon that can appear with dementia patients, where the effected person struggles with intensified confusion and/or anxiety around the late afternoon and evening. The songs on the album might be an attempt to let us, the listeners, understand the world of someone with dementia and their loved one. TNDNBTG pretty much throws us into a setting right away. The first verse refers to the relatively normal version of the patient, the version of the person the speaker loves (“When you live by daylight with angels at your side”). In contrast we have the bridge very literally describing the phenomenon of Sundowning (“And you remember everything only ‘til the sun recedes once again”). “The Night comes down like heaven” could reference the time where the patient finally manages to sleep, so get rest and be free from the anxiety they experience in the evening. Next we have the Offering. I feel like this might be the speaker’s attempt at enjoying the time they have with their loved one as they are aware it will be over sometime soon. “Take a bite” might be a command as in “Let us enjoy the time while you still remember things and know who I am”. Levitate is a strong contrast to this (and it fucks me up, respectfully). The speaker realises that while they try to enjoy time with their loved one, maybe they are spending a lot of active quality time together, it is already not the same it used to be. It seems their loved one isn’t aware of their own disease (a common occurrence with dementia) so the speaker tries their best to pretend nothing ever changed (“And we imitate a story of perfect days”). Dark Signs continues a similar theme. “Most days, you reach for safety [...] alarm bells in your eyes” once again describes the loved one’s suffering. “I miss the man I was the moment we left off”, is the speaker mourning the version of themselves they used to be before their loved one’s disease became noticeable. Now Higher is where we can see a change in behaviour on the side of the speaker; They are growing angry at their loved one. I’ve talked about this in my analysis of the 5 stages of grief in TMBTE, it is a common occurrence to experience anger in dealing with disease and/or death. The speaker’s loved one is treating them differently, worse than they used and while they don’t know what they are doing, the speaker feels mistreated (“You are killing me slow”). What really stood out to me here is the line “I look for scarlet and you look for ultraviolets” stresses how their perspectives on the world are entirely different.

Take Aim feels very similar, just a lot less aggressive. “How you love like weapons kill” shows us that the speaker doesn’t belive their loved one is trying to harm them, yet they feel like they aren’t being seen or treated right. For Give we have a switch in feelings again, which I think is a great depiction for how struggling with grief is entirely arbitrary and just really fucking random. The speaker wants to do everything they can to protect their loved one from the world. Furthermore they know that they are the responsible one now since their loved one barely knows what is happening to them (“I know how we got here”). In the chorus they are simply asking their loved one to give them whatever they have left in an attempt to remember they still love them.

In Gods we are circling back to anger. Not so much at the speaker’s loved one, more towards the world, the universe, God, existence. “It’s all so easy for me” could be a reaction to something people who take care of their sick family hear a lot “Oh my God, I could NEVER”. The speaker hates how everyone pretends it’s easy for them, when it’s clearly not. Now I will admit: for Sugar I’m reaching a little since this song has very clear sexual references that I will ignore entirely but I refuse to let this song hold me back from this interpretation. What I specifically want to focus on is the bridge. “You must be crazy if you think that I will give up the game” might mean something like “I will not give up on this person even if it kills me”. I suppose this as a general theme for Sugar is the best we’re going to get, let’s just move on (if you’re my literature professor reading this, you did NOT see me doing this x). Say That You Will implies the state of the patient’S disease has worsened since we started with TNDNBTG. “Is that a word you said my love or just a gesture in tongues” implies the thoughts of their loved one have been getting harder to comprehend, the speaker is struggling more and more to keep up with their mind. “I know you’re planning to leave in the end” foreshadows the death of their loved one. “Let the impulse to love and the instinct to kill entangle to one” portrays another common phenomenon in dementia patients, where they sometimes do not recognise their family and believe they are strangers trying to harm them.

Drag me Under shows us a last attempt at taking in as much of the speaker’s loved one as they can while they are still alive. “The Angels tonight are suffering as I am” metaphorically shows us how everyone in their social circle has to watch their downfall while not being able to do anything about. “The Gods will abandon the heavens just to find us” portrays the speaker not being ready to let go of their loved one; they know they are going to die, yet aren’t ready to accept this. Finally, Blood Sport. We see the speaker admitting that they “can’t win” in caring for their loved one, The “arrogance” the speaker talks about might refer to both their own anger and the actions their loved one has committed (even if they didn’t understand what they were doing). “Somewhere the atoms stopped fusing” references the point at which the disease first entered their life.

I feel like majority of Sundowning is pretty self explanatory, however if you have questions regarding specific lines I didn’t mention, ask away. Next, we will look at the continuation of this journey in TPWBYT. Take care!

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

Sometimes i think about the person who made the "You are so loved" sign. They wanted to let the band know what they mean to us all. And the way they phrased it, not the simple 'We love you', but 'You are so loved'. It's not much at a first glance, but adds so much flavour, you know.

And then i think how Vessel uno reversed it at the audience. Or how he (probably) made an entire fucking show to play the monologue about the "You saved me" message he got too. Saying he hasn't suffered as much as we did. Always deflecting.

So sometimes I'm. Thinking how it's such a fitting thing to do for someone who decided to call himself a vessel. Who states that the people behind the music are not important. And i get emotional in a whole different way.

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

"Is It Really You" and it's place in Sleep Token's discography

Okay so firstly, the three part thing about the trilogy will happen and hopefully start next week, I did not have enough time for it yet though (was busy seeing Sleep Token live) and I really want to be precise on that one so I’m sorry! <3

Anyhow, this time I want to talk about Is It Really You. Before any of you tell me “It’s just a cover”, your mom is just a cover (respectfully). Yes, it is a cover song but let’s have a look at it’s placement in the discography. The song came out between TPWBYT and TMBTE, meaning if we listen to the discography in chronological order, the last song before IIRY is Missing Limbs, the next one would be Chokehold. Now what do we do with this information? Looking at Missing Limbs, we have a song that deals (or at least could deal) with the speaker loving someone that has been through traumatic experiences. They want to love that person, yet the emotional pain makes it unbearable. “I live like I’ve got missing limbs for you” shows us how the speaker tries to help their loved one through the pain but feel themselves getting lost in this attempt. This is obviously not THE one interpretation for Missing Limbs (rule nr.1 in literature class: there is no definitive right or wrong) but I want to use this interpretation in an attempt to look at IIRY. I believe the cover continues the story started in Missing Limbs at the point where the loved one is no longer around. The speaker seems to reflect on the past relationship, understanding it wasn’t good for either of them. “Deal with the pain, your own way [...] I knew that it was mine too” shows us how the speaker is aware of how the struggles of their former partner affected them as well. Now, I hear you. “Why on earth is Chokehold the next song then?” I feel Chokehold might be the attempt to start over, sort of ignore the past and move on. However we can see the speaker circle back to the old feelings in the course of TMBTE, literally just think about Are You Really Okay? Of course there is a chance Vessel just wanted to cover a song he liked, however I do believe that the covers can be seen as meaningful parts of the discography. 

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

Talking about the trilogy and how "Sundowning" didn't stop after the first album

TW: alzheimers, death, grief It’s no news the albums can be seen as a trilogy, we all know about TNDNBTG and Euclid, there has got to be some kind of connection. Now if we look at the title of album nr.1 “Sundowning” we could look into how this album might describe the journey of someone with Alzheimer’s disease. More specifically I believe the album lets us have a look into the world of someone whose loved one is slowly becoming more and more sick. “And you remember everything until the sun recedes once again” can be taken very literally. Also if we think of Blood Sport, it could definitely imply the speaker trying to hold on to their loved one but failing to do so (“I can’t win”). Now, I don’t necessarily believe the journey stops there. Once again taking album names very literally, “This Place Will Become Your Tomb” might represent the final stages of Alzheimers and eventually the death of the person in question. I won’t go into detail on every song because we’d be here for a while then but just to give a few examples: Fall For Me might describe a stage where the loved one no longer recognises the speaker as a close relative and instead assume they are trying to harm them, so the speaker is just desperately trying to explain how they are still full of the love the loved one wants. Finally Missing Limbs shows the speaker indulging into the world of their loved one after they have passed. Now that they don’t have to actively react to actions of their loved one anymore, they have time to reflect and understand how horrible the last time must have been for them. Lastly we have Take Me Back To Eden as a representation of the speaker slowly getting back to their life as it used to be. “Eden” can here be seen as the state where the speaker wasn’t yet aware of diseases like Alzheimers ruining one’s life, when they still managed to live carelessly. With Euclid lyrically circling back to TNDNBTG we have a final goodbye to their loved one before finally letting go. This is very short now, let me know if you want a detailed explanation for each album, I might consider posting this in three parts then :)

[sleeptokeninterpretations]

Sleep Token’s “Take Me Back To Eden” and the five stages of grief

So I have had an idea for a possible interpretation for the album Take Me Back To Eden and as far as I have seen an interpretation with this idea has only been provided for Sundowning so far so I figured I’d give it a try.

Essentially what I’m seeing as a possible interpretation is Take Me Back To Eden expressing the five stages of grief after a suicide of a loved one, in particular a romantic partner. How I came to this idea? Let’s have a look.

TW: we will deal with the topics death, suicide and grief here.

Denial

Why would a song about death and grieving begin with two songs that sound more like an offering (see what I did there) to a lover rather than a sad song?

I think there are two reasons why the album starts with these songs. One of them is the stage of denial. When grieving, many people either feel numb or ever carry on like nothing ever happened in an attempt to ignore the issue. Both Chokehold and The Summoning can be seen as attempts to write about a passed loved one like nothing ever happened.

However I believe there is another reason. Throughout the album we watch the speaker go through a variety of emotions caused by the loss of a loved one. By starting the album with Chokehold and The Summoning, we are to understand how intense the relationship between the speaker and their lover was so we can empathise better with the emotions displayed in the course of the album.

Anger

Moving on to the second stage, anger, which is dealt with in Granite.

Now if you’ve wondered why I think the album might be about grieving after a suicide specifically, the explanation for this is mainly found in songs expressing anger. We will get back to this when talking about anger within the stage of depression but we can find some references in Granite already. It appears that the speaker is mad at their lover for not expressing their feelings before their death. Specifically “we’d rather be six feet under than be lonely” suggests that the loved one has not expressed their negative feelings out of fear the speaker might leave them. A similar theme is dealt with in the line “You say you want me but you know I’m not what you need”.

Bargaining

See, with Aqua Regia and Vore it gets a little bit tough and I definitely find it hard to find lines actually referring to this state but we’ll work with it.

I think Aqua Regia could be understood as the speaker offering to go through the same pain as their loved one in an attempt to get them back, kind of like “come back, I’ll be in pain with you”.

Vore goes in a similar direction, the speaker is trying to make themselves relatable (“Are you in pain like I am”), hoping that this might bring their loved one back.

Again this is very brief (and analysing Aqua Regia has always given me a headache) so I will keep it at this.

Depression

We enter the fourth stage, depression. This is by far the longest stage with five whole songs, which quite naturally shows how grief isn’t linear.

Ascensionism is a whole emotional ride on it’s own and can almost be seen as a trip through different stages within the grieving process.

I would still consider this to be part of the depressive stage. “Anything’s better than the way I feel right now” definitely suggest this.

Lines like “you make me wish I could disappear” might feel a little out of place here as they seem to be directed at a person who has hurt the speaker, however I believe the line is to be understood as “by disappearing out of my life, you make me wish I could disappear”.

Though as mentioned before, Ascensionism is a whole ride on its own and I will definitely write an interpretation on this song alone at some point.

Next we have Are You Really Okay?, definitely one of the main reasons that led me to this interpretation in the first place.

Here we have the speaker clearly expressing desperation and helplessness (“I want to help you but I don’t know how”) and we are confronted with the speaker being well aware of their lover’s mental struggles way before their death. The lyrics of this song are also the main reason I believe the album is dealing with grief after a suicide specifically since here we have a bunch of references to mental health struggles.

Now for The Apparition and DYWTYLM we can see an interesting shift in the feelings. If we stick to the 5 stages of grief we would still be in the stage of depression, however we can see the speaker circling back to anger.

It’s important to know that the stages of grief are to be understood as a “guideline” to what grief can look like when we observe people dealing with illness or loss, yet they do not necessarily have to appear in this exact order, grief is rarely linear.

Additionally we need to understand that a less commonly known symptom of depression is anger, so the anger expressed by the speaker can be understood as a symptom of the depressive state rather than a separate stage.

The Apparition seems to deal with the speaker (day-)dreaming about their loved one, however they keep circling back to reality and realise that those dreams are only based on memories and events that no longer can happen in the present.

Examples for this would be lines like “Why are you never real”, “But I know you will disappear just as I awake” or “Loaded dreams still leave me empty”.

What we can see here quite well is a combination of depression and anger. The speaker is angry with their passed loved one, they basically yell at them to finally leave their thoughts and stop haunting their dreams. At the same time they express the depression and feeling of emptiness that those dreams leave them with.

Now DYWTYLM continues the theme of depression in combination with anger while switching the topic. The speaker now asks for answers on questions that potentially deal with the suicide of their loved one. Simultaneously the speaker understands the death as an offense against themselves, they assume that their loved one has expressed a lack of love for the speaker by ending their own life.

Two things are important here. One, this does not mean that the speaker is self centred, it does not even mean they genuinely hold this belief. Looking for the “bad guy” is a very natural process in grieving, essentially the brain is trying to provide answers to questions that cannot actually be answered. Two, while the song is titled DYWTYLM and therefore the focus is easily on the emotion of anger, I don’t believe this is the actual focus here. Rather than that we can look at all the questions in the verses like “Do you pull at the chains? Or do you push into constant aching?” or “Is there something you give? That you will never receive in return?” While the anger in lines like “maybe not that you conceal your feelings, they just don’t exist” cannot and should not be ignored, I believe the main theme here is the speaker making an attempt at understanding the emotions that eventually caused the death. Furthermore the speaker briefly expresses their own sadness specifically in the line “my reflection just won’t smile back at me like I know it should”.

Lastly for the fourth stage we have Rain.

I put this under the stage of depression but I do think there is a good reason this is the last song in this stage.

The speaker is looking back on their love “the vicious cycle was over the moment you smiled at me” but we are still slowly fading into the stage of acceptance.

The last line in the bridge “When I open my eyes to the future I can hear you say my name” could be seen as an expression for the very common phrase “they would want you to move on”.

When the speaker thinks about the future, he imagines his lover guiding them a way into said future.

Acceptance

We now enter the stage of acceptance with the last two songs and I believe acceptance refers to two different things in this case, accepting one’s own feelings and finally the actual death.

In Take Me Back To Eden, the speaker mostly attempts at validating their own feelings. In the first verse, they let themselves indulge in memories of the past, in the second verse they express how they have been experiencing the journey of grieving.

One line I want to talk about in particular can be found in the third verse.

“That we’ve no idea what we’ve got until we lose it and no amount of love will keep it around if we don’t choose it.”

I think this is such a powerful way to express both the fear of not having appreciated the significant other while they were alive and the realisation that the speaker themselves can’t be blamed, the death of their loved one was not to be prevented by the speaker just loving their partner more.

Last but not least, let’s move over to Euclid.

We have to understand the death of a loved one does not mean one has moved on entirely. One can simultaneously accept while still being desperate, sad or helpless.

“Give me five whole minutes” may refer to the feeling of wanting to relive the time experienced with the person just a little bit longer. Generally the first verse refers to this exact feeling, getting lost in one’s memories and wanting back the old times just a little longer. If we think about lines like “Give me one last ride on a sunset sky lane”, we can see the speaker almost begging their lost love to come back for just a little bit. This could also be connected to a very common feeling in the process of grief, where one wants to go back to times with the loved one to experience the moments together more consciously.

“Call me when you get the chance, I can feel the walls around me closing in” appears to be the speaker wanting to talk to the loved person they lost while already being aware they won’t actually receive in an answer.

The second verse continues the theme of wanting back the loved one, however the speaker expresses the awareness that they are gone.

“I play along with the life signs anyway” seems to describe the process of slowly getting back into one’s daily life while slowly moving on from actively grieving.

Now as I already mentioned, moving back into your daily life and moving on, does not mean you entirely forget about the person.

“Yet in reverse, you are all my symmetry, a parallel I would lay my life on” can be understood as an attempt to express that the speaker does not want to forget about the person they lost, maybe they have learned a lot of valuable life lessons from that person and want to remember those things in their future life.

“Call me when you have the time, I just need to leave this part of me behind” basically concludes this feeling that has been building up over the second verse, the speaker clearly expresses that they feel the need to move on with their life.

Now for the sake of interpretation we are not going to look into the last verse being a reference to TNDNBTG and just look at lyrics on their own.

The first part of the lyrics once more shows the speaker reminiscing as in the line “We tangle endlessly, like lovers entwined”.

Now let’s have a look the last few lines.

“I know for the last time, you will not be mine, so give me the night.”

The speaker seems to reflect on their own process of grieving while also coming to terms with the fact that their loved one has passed away. They know they cannot be together like they used to be and are ready to go on with their life. “Give me the night” can be understood as an expression that the speaker is ready for new challenges, memories and experiences.

I obviously don’t know if this is the meaning intended by Vessel (if you ask my literature professor the meaning intended by the author doesn’t have to concern me either way).

However I think that it deepens the understand of songs like Are You Really Okay or Euclid and provides a rather new perspective on songs like DYWTYLM.