Sleep Patterns

Sleep Patterns (Merchant Ships)

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Spotify

This song holds an incredibly special place in my heart. Merchant Ships are a band who’ve gotten me through several hardships. They recently released quite a bit of their catalogue on Spotify, making their music more accessible to many more people wanting to seek refuge from hard times with the help of music. While it’s definitely not easy to get into their music, once you do, it’s impossible to look back. Every song bleeds emotion, nothing is fake and you can very clearly see how the songwriter feels. Sleep Patterns might be one of the best emo songs. Compared to their other songs, this is definitely easier to get into because of its tranquil nature. However, this halcyon also translates into this eerie atmosphere, which makes me feel like I’m stranded in the dead of night with nothing in sight, just me and my thoughts.

The song is in F#Major, which is a rather unorthodox key, but since it’s essentially played on a guitar with a capo on the first fret, it’s just easier to think of the song as if it’s in G Major since all the shapes make more sense, making it easier to talk about the song. The song uses one of my favourite things to do in a stripped down and acoustic setting, letting the strings ring out. I don’t know how to describe the timbre in words; it’s better heard than said.

Let’s get to the lyrics now. When lyrics come from a sincere place, it’s quite perceptible. For me, this sent shivers down my spine as every note entered my ears. The scene in the beginning is set two days before the 9/11 tragedy, which is often considered to be one of the worst modern tragedies in modern American history. The song starts off with our protagonist playing with their younger brother, Gary. Soon, an ambulance carries a dead woman. This is Gary’s first exposure to the concept of death. As the events play out, the woman's family gathers around and starts their journey through grief by denying the occurrence of the event by asking her to wake up. As our protagonist’s younger brother muses, he asks our protagonist for answers. Our protagonist tells him that her soul has left her body for heaven. He accepts that he very likely didn’t believe a word of it, but that, in all likelihood, it would be easier to understand.

Two days later, the 9/11 tragedy occurred. This sends our protagonist into a spiral of existential dread as they question their faith in God. After contemplating this, our protagonist tells their younger brother that there is no God and all of life is meaningless. But with time, their faith has been faintly renewed. They pray, wherever their brother may be, God may have a plan for them.

This suggests that our protagonist hasn’t spoken to their brother in a while, and this is confirmed in the following verse, where they talk about the rising tensions in their family and how it will tear them apart. This will cause the rift between them to grow further. They reminisce about a time when their brother asked them what they wanted to attain in their life. They had no presuppositions and had abandoned all of the religious and moral principles they had spent their entire lives believing in, having become far more nihilistic. They, without explicitly stating it, mean that they are afraid of going away from this world without accomplishing anything, which is a feeling that has only grown in this day and age.

Now, the spoken part stops with a bridge that is sung. Here, interesting chord progressions take place along with discussing the fact that humans have a natural tendency to run away from their demons and fears instead of facing them head on, in this case, the fear of dying with no purpose. This fear is only augmented by the dreams they have started having where they talk about being in a car full of strangers, singing songs that they’ve never heard of and smoking cigarettes as they swerve off the road and suffer an accident. The protagonist makes clear that this dream disconcerted them to their core by stating all the details of their dreams, which may also suggest that they are fairly intermittent. They talk about flying out of the car into a wall, breaking their neck and skull, bleeding to death in excruciating pain.

Day by day, they feel frightened as they slowly feel this dream becoming a reality as they meet these strangers and befriend them, which will eventually set things in motion for them to die. The song ends with the only constant our protagonist has figured out in their life: They have absolutely no idea about the future and are afraid of it, representing how fast life can feel at times.

Sleeping Patterns asks an important question. How would we go about life if we knew how we were supposed to die? Would we actively prevent it from happening or let nature run its due course and leave it up to chance? Our protagonist states that they are in limbo where they are unable to understand whether to let God’s plan fall into place the way it was destined to, or to use the free will they have to actively try and prevent that outcome from happening in the first place. In the final stanza, as our protagonist has a brief moment of clarity, they realise that living life in the moment is more salient as existential dread will distract them from the present and won’t help their future turn out any better. At the same time realising that knowing and accepting are two very different things. They know that things will be this way but haven’t fully accepted it. And moments like the sunset bring them some happiness as they smile and lie down to get some rest from the constant state of dreariness they live in.

Thanks a lot for reading. Have a nice day!