005 HALF-ASLEEP

Choosing this song as the first song to release seemed obvious to me.  Somehow this one seemed to always encapsulate the whole album within itself.   It felt like it was musically, very ‘me.’  Lyrically, having visions about her, and trying to emotionally reconcile wanting to be with her, and also be here with the rest of us.  That’s a lot of what I’m fighting to put words to in so much of this whole thing.  
 
Using her name may be too personal, but I just don’t care.  I wrestled with how generic it should be lyrically throughout the process – not because I was afraid of details, but because I hoped that other people would be able to find their own stories within my story of loss.  It’s something we all share in common:  losing people we love.   In a sense, our story is everyone’s story, and that is incredibly sad and incredibly comforting somehow.  Her name is Anniston, and once I sang it and heard it that way, I couldn’t hear it any other way.   
 
  •      I’m listening… would you tell me now?  ‘I’m coming over’
 
That she would meet me at that gate and tell me she’s going to open it.  A sort of fixation on the medium that divides us, and how unyielding it is in this world, but in that alternate world of the vision (LINK TO ATFG FOR VISION LAYOUT), that there would be a time that the gate could be opened.
 
The bridge of this song was a way for me to zoom out a bit on myself and the way I’ve processed much of my grief.  I was wondering what was wrong with me that I have these visions.  Did I make them up?  What does that mean?  Does that even matter?  I don’t think it does.   I was thinking about how I feel when I’m in that place that’s reserved for us in that field.   It’s completely quiet, and somehow also deafening and loud.  ‘10,000 birds singing’ was a mental image of how loud it was – how celebratory birds singing together is in concept, but the caucaphony of it, too.  There’s also a dash of the idea of the 10,000 things from Tao Te Ching, which is the reason for that number.   I wanted to contrast how universal and large the idea of the 10,000 things is, and then the imagery is pulled back down into simply sitting with her at the gate and talking quietly – eventually culminating in one day arriving at the opened gate, and there is nothing to separate us any longer.
     
Half-Asleep
 
 

LYRICS

 

memories

places I’ve yet to see

wait for me in all the dreams I have

honestly, if there’s a way to be

half asleep all the time

 

Anniston

I’m calling over

I’ll meet you at the gate, if you can

I’ve been lying in flowers

I am listening

will you tell me now?

‘I’m coming over

to be with you’

 

there are fields in me

hidden evergreen 

the butterfly wing

took the keys and left me broken

it’s hard to see as time goes by

the rust upon the frame 

the gate that keeps our worlds apart 

a veil to hide the blame

and I say

 

Anniston

I’m calling over

I’ll meet you at the gate, if you can

I’ve been lying in flowers

I am listening

will you tell me now?

‘I’m coming over’

 

what does that say about me?

what does that say about us?

that we go back to that gate over and over again

are there ten thousand birds singing?

or is it a fire inside my bones?

that we make this place that we can call our own

where we can be alone

and talk about our love

 

I’ve been lying in flowers

one day, I’ll meet you there

and the gate will be open

when my time is over