Sleep Song – Hot Tuna
> Lost at sea doesn't mean you're gone. Just away for a while.
Jump to: Sleep Song Lyrics
Sure a lot smaller every day Wonder why we feel this way You don't know that I've got nothing left to say
Some days the shore looks closer, some days it's gone completely. That wind never stops.
And Sleep Song captures that perfectly. It's a song that gets in you slowly.
I used to hear melancholy in it. Now I hear something more complicated: exhaustion without surrender. The peculiar condition of having been carried so far by weather, circumstance, love, grief, and your own questionable navigation that you can no longer quite remember where you meant to go.
I've been blown across the water Like a ship ain't got no sail.
For a ship with no port, no wind is the right wind, after all.
Simple imagery, complex circumstance. No sail doesn't equal sinking. It is still a ship. It is simply no longer deciding where it goes.
Nobody told me life had seasons like this. Map blown away in the same gale that sets me adrift.
No choice of current. Nor wind. I'd like to argue I didn't even choose to leave teh harbor. but that was likely just part of graduating to adult life. We're busy trying to understand the awe of the massive horizon we see for the first time in our lives, not realizing that the harbor of youth is shrinking all the while.
When we notice, it, it's too late. Can't ever go back. So we look for new harbors. Some find. Some just live a life at open sea.
Others go to the sweet release of the briny depths.
And that ain't no way to feel.
A declaration. It's sort of small and obvious. But a huge realization when we explore it.
This isn't how a person is supposed to feel.
And yet here we are.
No big drama. No storms, whirlpools or sea monsters to fight. We never get Poseidon and his trident. The sail never returns... it just keeps not making sense.
Sounds a lot like life.
Guess this was a good metaphor upon which to base a song.
We do get trees. Trees with winter wind. Makes me think of the wind in my trees that was always a warm hush. Calming cure to anxiety and loss. But here, the wind is cold, harsh, a driving master.
Winter wind keeps blowing through the trees But life keeps breathing gaily as you please Hey now, silver birches lying by the road Branches lined against the winter snow
The natural world never stops. It is a God-induced system dynamically powered by the Creator and we are powerless to little but adjust to its whims. Just because we're hurting doesn't mean it can stop.
The wind continues.
The trees continue.
Somewhere, someone is laughing and cooking dinner.
while our world spins and slips through the universe. And eventually you discover that this isn't cruelty at all.
It is permission.
Life goes on and we're given permission to live it. Not solve every woe, or make meaning from the damage. Though some romantic poet essayist will do just that.
Why worry about where the ship is headed? We only need to get to sunrise tomorrow. And then the day after that. Staying afloat long enough to let a solution find us.
We left the shelter yesterday
Yesterday.
That's all it takes.
Shelter can be a lot of things. Temporary lean-to or a blue castle on the hill. A relationship, belief, even a a version of ourselves.
Maybe even a vow or a promise we made to ourselves.
Then one day we find we're outside the place we felt safe. And maybe what drew us out was enticing and promised a better existence than we had in the shelter. More comfortable. Or more seen. Complete somehow.
Weirdly, we may not even remember when or why we left, just that where we are is different... and maybe it does seem better. But then there's that reason we were in the shelter to begin.
We might not even notice we're cold, or wet, or damaged or whatever. But someone says to us, 'hey, do your realize you're naked? Why are you outside?'
And the world suddenly seems HUGE.
But there we are, the horizon falling away to the left and the right and we might not even remember how to get home, or how long it took to get here. Just that the water seems fine and we love our new tan.
Maybe that's why Sleep Song feels less like despair and more like a declaration of interval. A glimpse into a possible future.
The quiet country between what was and whatever comes next.
A ship without a sail and winter roads. Lost, cold and empty. Broken and confused. But the ship is still seaworthy and despite all the weather, there is still life in the old hull.
Floating as gaily as you please.
That's enough for tonight.
Maybe that's what sleep is for.
Sleep Song – Hot Tuna
Sure a lot smaller everyday Wonder why we feel this way You don't know that I've got nothing left to say
I've been blown across the water Like a ship ain't got no sail That ain't no way to feel
I feel that longing loud and clear Dead end streets and I lay here When you're flying you've got nothing left to fear
'Less you're gonna cross the water Like a ship ain't got no sail That ain't no way to feel
Winter wind keeps blowing through the trees But life keeps breathing gaily as you please Hey now, silver birches lying by the road Branches lined against the winter snow
We left the shelter yesterday After we had played some way You can find that I've got nothing left to say
'Less you're gonna cross the water Like a ship ain't got no sail That ain't no way to feel
I've been blown cross the water Like a ship ain't got no sail That ain't no way to feel
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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper