When I was thinking of an album title for my latest album I came up with this phrase that everyone seemed to think was too long, but I felt captured the theme behind all the songs perfectly. The theme that came into my head was "Where We Are And Where We Long To Be". This phrase swirled around in my head for a little while and later became the opening line of the song "Sleeper" which is the first full song on the album. Here are the lyrics to that whole song...
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Where we are and where we long to be
has me dying for all to be complete
setting my hopes high
i find i can breathe
look to the east
the rising begins in me
so wait, the dawns approaching the day
and the One who sleeps will come awake
at long last, never less than near
Where we are is all my eyes can see
but my heart knows where I long to be
setting my hopes high
i find i can breathe
with eyes to the east
i feel the rising
come awake Great Sleeper
come awake all sleepers
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This song has been interpreted a few ways and a couple of them I almost like better than what I originally intended. Just one of the beauties of music is that many people can listen to the same song and take different things from it.
When I wrote this song, that theme was running thick in my mind. I can easily look around this world and see a whole load of brokenness and think "where is God?" It can sometimes feel like He is sleeping. This song to me became a symbolic begging of the "Great Sleeper" to come awake and make things right.
This song also references myself and many others as the "sleepers". Quite often in my relationship with God, I feel like I am sleeping, or like I am a member of that lukewarm church mentioned in Revelation that God is about to spit out because they are neither hot nor cold. Just kind of going through the motions, but all the while I might as well be asleep. So its a call to myself and all those like me to wake up.
There's all sorts of other ideas and influences running through the lyrics, but thats really the basis of the song. Like I said earlier other people have interpreted it in different ways which is awesome. One in particular is found here... http://sola5guy.blogspot.com/2009/01/go-get-this-cd-now.html.
So what do you think? What does the song say to you? I'd be interested to hear what you think.
I think I possess a skill that many of us non musicians possess. That skill is the ability to sing along with a song over and over again, with of course the music turned up loud enough to make it seem like we are in harmony, only to have the lyrics posted and realize I've sung this song wrong about 412 times in the past week.
ReplyDeleteI thought Sleeper said 'setting my hopes high I find I can't reach, eyes to the east, I feel the rising'....meaning you can't do it alone, and regardless of how many times we remind ourselves that we often try to do it on our own.
This isn't nearly as deep as your original meaning of the song, nor is it even close to the synopsis on the link you posted. However, I thought I'd add a different perspective :)
Lastly, here is a weird random bit of info for you. I have been working out to your CD because I tell you what, if you can't get jacked to Sleeper, you don't have a pulse. Having said that, it happens every time, I'll be doing pushups or something and then all of a sudden the shuffle kicks in and inevitably 'Morning Hymn' comes on......
Rick, all kidding aside, you nailed it. This CD is incredible. I hope my random post was as welcome as the more sophisticated ones :)