Thank Famke it’s Friday.
To get you through this wonderful spring weekend, how about another music competition?
With today being World Sleep Day, I want to know: What’s your favourite song whose lyrics reference sleep or sleeping?
Here’s mine.
Reply below to be in with a chance of winning a €20 voucher redeemable at any Currys PC World store.
The winner will be chosen by my AI alarm clock.
Please include video links if possible.
Lines close on Saturday at 11am.
Nick says: Good luck!
Last week’s winner here
Sponsored Link
The Zevon, of course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO1QUy-HTHQ
Without question the most beautiful song from the brilliant vocals of the amazing Miss Lisa Hannigan,
https://youtu.be/Mu7sdq_zLQk
Enjoy
I’ll be back in a bit!
Happy Friday
The full version with Ray LaMontagne,
https://youtu.be/rKCB0TSBOFc
Brilliant!
REM – Daysleeper
https://youtu.be/uUcKeKt8C1k
Aptly enough for a band with a sleep related name, they have a few songs on the topic…
Here’s “I Dont Sleep, I Dream” from 1994s Monster:
https://youtu.be/Tc7UzxDa9HE
The Beatles – Golden Slumbers
https://youtu.be/AcQjM7gV6mI
So good!
“And after three days of drinkin’ with Larry Love, I just get an inklin’ to go on home…”
Alabama 3 – Woke Up This Morning
https://youtu.be/lC7HrC027pk
Kate Bush – And Dream of Sheep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_256xd9N27o
Roy Orbison – In Dreams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVRunwyoTMA
obvious winner, one of the greatest songs ever written. It never repeats itself, every section is different.
sleep sleep ! hahahahahahahaha manic laughing,
found myself warbling this out of nowhere in the dark hours , The three Sirens, Go to sleep little baby , from O Brother where art thou, I didn’t even know I knew the words lol,
https://youtu.be/FXpRxzmawjw
Great song, great version.
A gorgeous song from a much underrated band. Chrissie Hynde sings this beautifully. https://youtu.be/uIpfsMdf0LQ
Wax Fang, Majestic
https://youtu.be/4B6E0mijV5A
“If I forget to set the alarm and sleep on through the dawn, don’t remind me
I’d rather be dreaming of someone, than living alone”
Máire Brennan – Óró
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_1w8-03zmk
Warning – This lullaby may cause drowsiness
The Shins – Sleeping Lessons
https://youtu.be/UoNtIkRm1HE
Have to put it in,
https://youtu.be/07Y0cy-nvAg
Enjoy!
Have to put this in!
SLF – the Belfast version
https://youtu.be/WwVEaZmZSs4
Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Wake up and make love with me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-VeOakGGPQ
“I come awake
With the gift for womankind,
You’re still asleep
the gift don’t seem to mind”
Pure genius. Most males will know what he means, wink, wink.
Belle and Sebastian -Sleep the clock around-
“Now the trouble is over, everybody got paid
Everybody is happy, they are glad that they came
Then you go to the place where you’ve finally found
You can look at yourself, sleep the clock around”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs7bjvySG80
Great shout.
The correct answer is Sleepers, Awake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8MpkPbaWXg
Sorry everyone else.
Innocent When You Dream – Tom Waits
https://youtu.be/-y-qzVKT8_8
Deceptively simple ditty from arguably the finest lyricist of our time…
I made a golden promise / That we would never part
I gave my love a locket / And then I broke her heart
And then I broke her heart
And it’s such a sad old feeling
All the fields are soft and green
It’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream
Táimse im’ Chodladh – Dolores Keane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgTPhQBxBKo
Despite its deceptive gentleness this one belongs on the list of our “FFS, wake up and get stuck into them” songs. And be honest – who here, having scanned some of the early morning posts, hasn’t hummed under their breath
…Go bhfeicead an lá a mbeidh ár ar Shasanaigh
Ughaim ar a ndroim is iad ag treabhadh is ag branar dúinn
Gan mise a bheith ann mura dtéanam an maide leo…?
Bert and Ernie, of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YWIEA4sV2U
Bert is Evil!
Grandaddy “Underneath the Weeping Willow”
“I want to sleep
Underneath the weeping willow
As it cries all night quietly
It’s tears all around me
I’ll sleep there so soundly
Until I’m allowed finally
To wake and be happy again”
A beautiful piece from a beautiful album:
https://youtu.be/uYeNZkqCWHw
lovely
Great stuff.
There are a few Beatles songs that are on-topic, sleep seems to have been a subject close to Lennon’s heart in particular – I’m Only Sleeping, I’m So Tired, Golden Slumbers; but I’m going with the lovely “Goodnight” a lullaby he wrote for the infant Julian that ended up closing out the White Album.
It’s positioning tacked onto the end of a very weird album straight after the arty anti-music of Revolution 9 makes it seem like a piss-take on Lennon’s part (also the fact he got Ringo to sing it, and George Martin to add a very syrupy string/choir arrangement) but it was apparently John being unusually sincere, and taken on it’s own merits it’s very sweet:
https://youtu.be/Qp_djIuQ2Cw
A cracking number from the great Rory Gallagher, from the Tattoo album, 1973
Sleep On A Clothes-Line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmhkBUyCPg
The master himself! Great choice.
Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
“I can’t sleep ’cause my bed’s on fire
Don’t touch me I’m a real live wire”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmmvtX0IUHU
Way ahead of it’s time, even though it’s timeless. The man Byrne is a musical genius.
This just came to mind, the brilliant Crystal Gayle, but I remember that a workmate had this as his first dance at his wedding?
Christ On A Bike!
Listen to the lyrics mate,
https://youtu.be/7pZ4dptJdOM
Anyway it didn’t last!
See you in a bit.
didn’t expect that at all.
Biko – Peter Gabriel
“When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVpsM3YAgw
Although I was too young at the time to understand the profound political message in this song, it haunted me for years. Then when I discovered the backstory it became one of my all time favourite musical indulgences.
One of the bests bands to spawn from our shores, My Bloody Valentine released Loveless in 1991. Perhaps the best shoegaze record ever released….
This is ‘When You Sleep’
https://youtu.be/WO9n2gZfOZU
Fugazi – I’m so tired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IKddfxkDWk
“I’m so tired sheep are counting me”.
This song a bit of an anomaly for a hardcore punk band and features just piano and vocals.
Nirvana – Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
https://youtu.be/hEMm7gxBYSc
From the legendary MTV Unplugged, a searing version of a song that originated as folk tune. Kurt Cobain sounds like he is the cuckold as he sings it with such passion.
Betrayal – the rawest of human emotions – seeps through this performance.
Faithless – Insomnia
I can’t get
no
Sleep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8JEm4d6Wu4
Daisy for the win!
tune
Metallica – enter sandman
Oh it just has to be Del Amitri’s “Sleep instead of Teardrops” (supposedly written for a girlfriend whose Dad had died). – It’s one of those songs that punches right you in the gut (IMHO) – especially if you have lost someone – with lines like ” ..as each consoling kiss remains on your face like a stain.. and “time is the greatest healer, but it’s a murderer today” .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFunocu3J08
A beautiful rendition of a lullaby from the Netherlands and superbly orchestrated. I defy anyone that has held a baby and gently rocked them asleep not to be moved by the music.
https://youtu.be/2GkQ9FdgLP0
Sleep little Jesus
Sleep little Jesus,
Hush don’t you cry.
Angels are watching and
I am here close by.
Radiohead – Nice Dream
https://youtu.be/jIjTFt6XmFM
Lumiere, with Damien Dempsey – The West’s Awake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-aCfgPg64
Sleeping and waking
Suede – Sleeping Pills
Beastie Boys.
No Sleep till Brooklyn
https://youtu.be/07Y0cy-nvAg
Happy Friday
Frances Black / Arcady – Lullaby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-tokKtRHbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8oRf7SMEfo
My first choice is by the massively underrated Into Paradise “Sleep”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iih3hzX0e8Y&ab_channel=Barry%27sVHS
“and no one ever dreams of you, and you never want them to
No one ever sleeps with you, and you never need them to,
Sometimes when you sleep beside me, my love grows cold,
I can’t believe, I can’t believe in myself… anymore”
The soundtrack to many evenings in the underground or the Rockgarden, drinking cans and smoking rollies and basking in the misery of the late night walk home because you had no money and there were no taxis anyway…
Not exactly a song, but still worthy of mention.
Samuel L Jackson – Go the F to sleep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCqgHLX8Ys
For all parents, everywhere. Who hasn’t thought this at least once?
Jackie Shane
Comin Down.
https://youtu.be/Fa36aO9zi3c
He can’t sleep at night
Nice cover of George’s ‘While my guitar gently sleeps’
https://youtu.be/6SFNW5F8K9Y
This is rather lovely.
Elvis Perkins* – While You Were Sleeping
https://youtu.be/NmEoUNWQrwg
*son of the late Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame.
As a young teen one of the few escapes in my house was music. I loved the vinyl collection, the decent old turntable and a pair of kickass Sony headphones. I played Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy regularly. It’s from that album we find my favourite song referring to sleep ; Dominion/Mother Russia.
https://youtu.be/-o-6ftmw8CE
It’s about the futility of building monuments to your power in remote places only for them to rust and crumble as was in evidence in many of The Iron Curtain countries. The Mother Russia part is about Chernobyl “Mother Russia, raining down “. We have “dreamers of sleepers” and “we dream of rain and the history of the gun” as our sleep references.
I love this song for it’s rich and meandering imagery. The sound is totally over the top, big and bold. Eldritch’s ego is all over it. I had the pleasure of seeing these live in Dublin a few years ago. It was worth waiting for.
Yup. love the band. love that song. A bit of Shelley in there too. “on the lone and level sand stretch far away”
https://youtu.be/ha3QivnjbIU
only in dreams from weezer. bit left field me thinks….Best song on their blue album.
https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-blue-album-at-20-looking-back-at-weezers-debut-track-by-track/
an old grantland website article about the whole album and what the songs supposedly mean…..
“My love’s beside me deep asleep
The dog is laying between my feet
Outside my window tonight
The cargo ships are cruising
And I’m so happy to be alive
To have these people in my life
Laying in my bed ceiling gazing…”
Mark Kozelek & Jimmy Lavelle – Ceiling Gazing
https://youtu.be/M7yYMfjVNJc
“A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
Go to sleep, everything is alright
I close my eyes then I drift away
Into the magic night, I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you…”
Roy Orbison – In Dreams
A fantastic song used to brilliant effect by David Lynch in the ‘Beer at Ben’s’ scene in Blue Velvet
https://youtu.be/Q5ntFAqhK5M
John Holt – Ali Baba
“My dream last night was about Ali Baba and the 40 thieves..”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8D8Kp_sMu8
I love Holt’s vocal delivery on this rocksteady track – laid back, silky-smooth but also at the point of cracking. I’d say more than a few smokes were had beforehand.
Bill Withers – Harlem
https://youtu.be/WK-pRoDUguA
Too hot too sleep
Sheila Hylton – Bed’s too big without you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGGjtlfsnYQ
One for Millie,
The brilliant and beautiful
Miss Bic Runga with, Get Some Sleep.
Something Janet I’m sure would like.
https://youtu.be/EfSp_YeYMYI
Enjoy!
Quiet, I am sleeping…
Used to listen to this album on repeat.
Smashing Pumpkins “Quiet” from Siamese Dream.
https://youtu.be/IKitK1l_fH4
The Stunning
Half past two.
https://youtu.be/iDjLC4U9qeA
Johnny clarke
Don’t trouble trouble
https://youtu.be/iQ7eGaQXuIc
When the lion is sleeping…
One last go, this amazing composition by Max Richter – Sleep,
It’s the perfect tune too help you relax and sleep.
https://youtu.be/9IOW7OXjHvY
Enjoy, good night and may your gods bless you!
Lovely super slow gentle pace to that…. :)
Treat yourself to the closing 6 1/2 minutes of the album Thirteen from surely one of the most underrated bands of all time:
“All the seeds you sow
Are just looking for a space to grow
So sleep, sleep and lay your white body down”
Teenage Fanclub “Gene Clark”
https://youtu.be/PzKFH-m9NGU
First song that popped into my head was Wake Me Up, Before You Go Go by Wham. – https://youtu.be/pIgZ7gMze7A
Well, if nobody else is going to do it, I will. The lamentably titled *Tight fit” with ” The lion sleeps tonight”
https://youtu.be/hRv4cdZxTdQ
A wim away a wim away
Oooooooooooeeeeeoooooeeeeee!
I remember this on Top of the Pops. Great tune and a lovely, re rapping earworm.