In the song Sleep Where You Fall by Nicknames, the singer uses metaphors, ambiguity, allegories and symbolism to depict a feelings of aggravation of friends being stuck in time and place.
I believe that that the singers way of singing through this song is a very key important point. Because he is shouting/screaming, and I believe this is a representation of his aggravation and annoyance. The singer begins with, "Consistency? The future is the only thing I see slowly creeping up on me." The singer means to say, who needs consistency to predict the future, when the future is something that is suppose to come at you like a surprise. He continues this idea through saying, "Growing up defines tough luck, like throwing up the excess that you slugged." An allegory for growing up was filled with unexpected mishaps, leaving a 'bad after taste' like throwing up. Only the after taste symbolizes these events leaving a strong impression on their childhood. This expression is also shown through the following lyrics ,"To keep you breathing, teach you something, even just to wake you up." The line, "Depraved and righteous" is a direct allusion from the bible, meaning that the world if full of people claiming righteousness, yet in reality depraved, and corrupt. The singer continues saying, "And you'll miss your friends." It is a simple line, but has an impactful meaning; through life and its hardships, you will miss simple things like your friends. Your friends become your home, and when witnessing depraved yet righteous acts through life, you wish to find peace through being with friends.
The singer finds a dilemma through his journey through life, "Growing roots cement your shoes to the pavement, no evasion." Here, he is talking about his friends and how, "I'll just stay here a few more years," is the problem. He believes that to stay were it is safe, their home town perhaps, or an allegory for staying in the past and not moving on. He continues, using an hyperbole to exaggerate the impossible, "Have you melted the tarmac." Tarmac is the run way for an airplane, to deliberately melt that tar means that it was run over repeatedly and under hot pressure. I believe this is a metaphor for his friends going under the pressure of moving on with their lives, to progress out in the world and to not sit back where it's safe in their home town. The speaker says, "Can you not taste how stale this place is yet?" an allegory, meaning have they yet to realize that if they stay in their home town where it is a place that lacks opportunity. Or meaning that they are stuck in a time where it is frozen, like being stuck in a time where they are still kids, and these moment are becoming tasteless to the singer, but still flavorful to his friends.
The speaker asks his friends, "Are you enslaved and flightless, chained to this island?" He is confused as to how they are blind by nostalgia by the grounds where they had grown up, to realize that they are not moving at all in life. Asking rhetorical questions again like, "Is it worth waiting for your friendships to end?" As if these friends are oblivious to the ending results to how this relationship. As though they believe that it will continue forever, in a frozen space and time of nostalgia and their youth. The chorus is critical to this song, and it very important as it becomes the synecdoche of the song. To, "sleep where you fall, keep it surreal" is to give up without a fight. It is a metaphor, and he uses this to demonstrate what his friends at home are like. The singer means that, if one were to fall, or to fail at something or come to a dark point in your life, one would fall asleep to brush off, or perhaps, run away from responsibilities. To sleep where you fall is something that people who give up on society and progress will do. At this point, they will, "Keep staring at your potential, though the rain seems so torrential." Referring to when they "fall", they give up, only to see their potential disappear and water down through the water. The dramatic irony is that the singer knows that it is hard to move from a safe place, to where they do not know. He understands that they are afraid of failing; "The sorrow in realizing where we are is all we know, and we know nothing's a crushing blow." The speaker tries to motivate his friends, and perhaps himself, "So set your sights on brighter lights and squint your eyes. Shut the windows, go outside to feel the wind blowing. It's nice right?" The singer wants his friends to imagine a future for themselves that is so bright, that their eyes will squint. But instead of being discouraged by the high goals, he wants his friends to "close the windows", ambiguity for either stop the taunting. Or to finally let go of their safe home town to be let out into the open, where they can "feel the wind blowing." meaning opportunity coming their way.
This song is rich with metaphors, "A new life slice tastes better than the antiquated pie, come take a bite." Here, the singer is trying to say that getting a taste of something new, which is getting out in the real world, is fresh and better than to dwell in the safe zone of their homes. Dramatic irony takes its roll when the singer is aware of how much he may be a hypocrite. He sings, "Through advice I give, I find myself a hypocrite." Saying that, sometimes even he too, comes down nostalgia's road to remember the times he had with his friends. And maybe how hard it is to not to want to go back after, "Here at my best still thinking back to summers I spent sleeping in the shack." His greatest, and undeniable worst discovery is finding that, "Through this life I've lead, I find parts of myself already dead." Meaning that sometimes through life, you find a point where you would like to crawl back in time, and visit nostalgia as if it were an old friend. Sometimes growing up means that you cant always look back, and despite how much people enjoy experiencing nostalgia, it holds them back from moving forward. Because sometimes life gets too rough, and all one wishes to do is to go back to a time and place where nostalgia was marked.
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