Sleep

I just thought it had something to to with terrorism and forced child labor. I don't know though. This song was kind of hard to, I don't know, analyze, I guess you would say.

That's also what I thought.....

well I thought thought it was about a man who did something for a good cause that either seemed crazy ("madman" or heroic to save people("children" against a terroist attack. But maybe people contradicted him, or he failed. Now he's sick and dying, and now he has to get used to the fact that he has to "let go of his dreams" and goals. And he says it resentfully.

i think this has 2 deal with the war and dying in a battlefeild....Sleep is a way of dying....thats what i think....

I don't know exactly what it is about but I don't play it when I'm alone because Gee talking into the recording tape about something gripping his throat just scares the shit out of me. I don't know why but it always does.

Darkromance:

Please someone explain to me what the "Paramount" is, and why Mikey left it if he was depressed. If he was depressed and in a down mood, why did he even go, and wouldn't he leave it if it was a haunted house because of fear, not depression?


I don't get it! please tell me!

Paramount was the name of the mansion where the band stayed to write the songs for The Black Parade. As far as I know his leaving the band had nothing to do with fear. He was having doubts about his importance to the band (I think) But the whole atmosphere of the house didn't help any of the guys.


Okay I played this song for a music project. I had to say what I thought the lyrics meant. I could have talked about the whole concept of the album and the character The Patient but I knew no one would understand. So I chose a different meaning I got from it.
I always thought this song could be talking about a soldier going to war and he was telling his lover to not worry about him eg. "So shut your eyes, Kiss me goodbye, And sleep"
And he's not been the best person in life so he feels he has to change his life and make a difference and that's why he's going to war. eg. "For the monsters that I've been"
But I don't think he make it back to his lover because of the line "Wake up" that's being screamed at the end and the last line on the voice recorder "And I can't....I can't ever wake up"

this is such a great song....when i saw them yesterday they played the start with gerard talkin like they have on the album....sooo awesome....sent the shivers down my spine

This song has always reminded me of the story of Romeo and Juliet for some reason.

When I was trying to figure out the whole story of the Black Parade, I was looking at it like everything after WTTBP wasn't so much the story of the Patient as of the people he met. (Mama is all the soldiers who've died in battle; Teenagers is the kids who died in high school shootings or just couldn't take it anymore and killed themselves; Cancer is about everyone who's died for cancer or some other long-term illness; etc.) So looking at it from that viewpoint, I always thought it was about mental patients.

Yeahhh.

maybe it's about....

sleeping?
o.O';







haha just kidding.
I honestly have no idea!
but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks!

I love this song so much!

Gerard wrote this song when he was having chronic nightmares apparently.

When i First heard this song i was like WTF?
but its very good
I also think its about some sort of nightmares...

for ages i didn't really know what i thought it was about...
but listening to it now i kinda get an idea...

to me it doesn't have to be about fighting for a war so much as between people... but it still has that fighting feeling... maybe a war with himself

i think i see it as how he's in such a deep depression and sees no way out except for to let himself go... all spiralling out of control from one moment in his past that he keeps revisiting

"for the good times and the bad times, for the monsters that i've been"

he feels like some people feel the way he's feeling, but they have a more understandable reason for theirs...
and now its got to the point where he's destroying himself, maybe due to drink and drugs...
"a drink for the horror that i'm in... there ain't no way that i'm going back again"
anything to make him not feel the way he is at the moment...

but he feels he's in such a deep hole he has no choice... this is the only way...
"how could you cry for me, cos i don't feel bad about it"
" i can't, i can't wake up"

he's decided that he can't go on like this and he needs to fix it... its started to affect who he is as a person and its damaging everyone around him
so he's telling people to just forget him... forget what he's doing and go back to their own lives... protecting those around him from what he's going through... he needs to make that distance...
"so shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye and sleep"
maybe he doesn't want them to know where he's going or wha he's going to do... all he knows is its better if he's not there...



and thats what i got... sorry its a bit jumbled... its not a word-for-word translation of the story... its just the overall feel i get from the song...
a feeling of hopelessness and despair... and how things are going to change...

when i had the lyrics last friday, i thought, "hey, this is sorta familiar.." u know.. the "it feels like as if somebody was gripping throat.." "sometimes i see flames.."

then i remembered.. i actually had sorta similar dreams as the said ones.

twice, i had a dream where a skull, dark-eyed with smoky.. err, tail coming into my room. it looked at me 4 a few seconds n it came 2 me. as it comes closer, its eyes turn yellow.. gettin' brighter each time. i didn't remember feeling gripped.. but i remembered feeling effin' suffocated, it's sorta.. gettin' harder n harder 2 get air.

i said prayers.. n eventually it left.

i was friggin' scared at the time so i got up from my bed n n opened the door. nothin' out there. DUH... i freaked out too much.

n as 4 the flames thing, i had it once.

there's a door.. i got in there. it's so dark i thought i was going blind. n there r holes.. with flames. i faintly felt the heat.

it's a probly undisputed fact that Sleep started as a song abt Ger's nightmares

although (& this is just my POV, so don't throw stuff at me) i've always seen it as a tribute to the traumas of war. i'm not saying they were purposely trying to get a msg across or writing just another 'stop the war' song -- altho it certainly wd work damn well as one -- but a lot of the lines support the idea of violence and tyranny on the common people.

suffer all the children
And walk away a savior

Could b talking abt how a person in power can commit heinous crimes yet appear as a hero in the eyes of some people (im thinking Hitler, as an example). many dictators & warlords *are* seen as heroes of sorts


So shut your eyes,
Kiss me goodbye,
And sleep
...The hardest part
is letting go of your dreams

Sounds like trying to let go of the nightmares & traumatic experiences caused by war/violence. and kissing their loved ones goodbye as they leave for the war -- probly their last goodbye ever.


A drink for the horror that I´m in,
For the good guys, and the bad guys,
For the monsters that I´ve been
Three cheers for tyranny,
Unapologetic apathy,
Cause there ain´t no way that I´m coming back again

From the pov of a soldier -- imagine these guys in an interval btwn battles, trying to numb their sorrow with a drink. "for the monsters' that ive been" might be referring to all the terrible things theyve had to do, gunning down ppl etc. "three cheers for tyranny/apathy" -- tyranny referring to the power-hungry govts, & apathy for those who choose to ignore that a damned war is going on & pretend everythg's ok. "theres no way im coming back again" -- if they ever get out alive i can imagine they'd want to flee from all the horrid memories.

ok I know that this is not the "intended" meaning of the song, but my impression of it before reading anyone else's interpretation was that it was a sort of negative, sad view of war.

"some say now suffer all the children and walk away a savior, or a madman and polluted..."

I always saw this as alluding to the glorification of war leaders and the corruption and guilt they must feel for sending so many young people to their death.

I always saw this song as being told from the perspective of a person who has gone to war, and become so completely numb to their situation that they don't even feel guilt for the things they are doing and witnessing.

"a drink, to the horror that I'm in, to the good guys and the bad guys, to the monsters that I've been. Three cheers for tyranny, unapologetic apathy..."

"there ain't no way that I'm sorry for what I've done..."

and the repeated phrase throughout the song "shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye, and sleep" I always saw as him soothing a loved one by telling them to shut their eyes and sleep, and just be oblivious to the terrible situation that he is actually going through. I think that he knows he is going to die, and he's trying to reach acceptance with it, and trying to get this other person to as well.

I don't really know how my impression was so different from everyone else's, but I just thought I would share it and see if anyone else got this anti war vibe from the song.

sorry this has been such a long post but this has been floating around my head for a while now

i kinda thougt it was about bush and the war, like a man is talking to his child saying he may never come home from iraq