My Chemical Romance: Sleep Meaning
Sleep Lyrics
And walk away a savior
Or a madman and polluted
From gutter institutions
Don't you breathe for me
Undeserving of your sympathy
'Cause there ain't no way that I'm sorry for what I did
And through it...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:First off, the recorded parts are from Gerard. while recording the black parade, the band stayed in a haunted mansion. Then Mikey had his little breakdown and left. after Mikey left, Gerard starting having nightmares and night terrors. He would record these and that is what you hear on the song.
but to take the song into account, it's about what the patient has done bad in his life. and now that he's dead, he can't do anything about it.
to take it into another perspective, where the black parade is something evil, you could assume that the patient was once supposed to be taken before. He struck a deal with the parade to save his own life, and now the parade is coming to take the ones he loves as per agreement and there isn't anything he can do to save them, and he's next. -
2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:All MCRs songs can be interpretated in many different ways like with this song it can be pulled back to the patient but also has many other meanings like the night terrors or it could be about war and how many people die in war. That’s what I believe and many of their songs are like this they have many interpretations and the stories the they put with the albums just give us more to think about though deep down we know that its all about their feelings and experiences. Any ways I absolutely love this band great work no matter what the interpretation.
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3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:Gerard said that while they recorded the Black Parade, they stayed in a haunted mansion. Gerard said that whole they stayed there he suffered from night terrors like he said in the song.
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Its regarding their band that are not going back to their old style without regrets. So just sleep as per the title of the song. Also the famous last word are specifically for them to say goodbye. I feel bad that they don't want to be the same band that we loved.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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The song has two main meanings behind it.
One of which is to tie into the overall concept of the album. The Patient is feeling guilty over the things that he has done in his lifetime, and is telling people not to feel sorry for him, because he is a bad person and deserves the things that come to him (death). This is the part in the black parade where the person looks back on all the bad things they've done and in turn pay for it.
This also is about the band members' experiences with sleep disorders and nightmares. Mikey had dealt with sleep disorders and night terrors as a child. The band had stayed at the Paramour mansion while recording. The mansion is known to be haunted and do some serious emotional damage to people who have stayed there. Mikey left the mansion because of this and when he did Gerard began to have night terrors. The beginning is recording he filmed in nights spent in the mansion. -
In an interview with My Chemical Romance, they stated that when they were staying in a mansion during the making of The Black Parade, Mikey Way(Bassist and brother of lead vocalist Gerad Way)began to have nightmeres that he ended up sleeping with Gerad Way. He then later had a break down and left the mansion.Soon after Mikey Way left the mansion, Gerad Way began to have nightmares aswell. After a nightmare he recorded himself as he told about them. Thus creating "Sleep".
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the song could be of many meanings but i think gee wants to let us know what happened in the mansion or it could be about how he doesnt want people to feel bad for the things hes done or someones about to lose their life but their fighting and he wants them to just close their eyes kiss him goodbye and sleep
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This is based on MCR's stay in Paramount studios which is allegedly haunted. Here is a quote from the mansion's wikipedia page:
"
My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way describes in the song Sleep a "night terror" he experienced while recording at the Paramour Mansion. He describes a feeling of being strangled, and says he couldn't wake up or move. He has also claimed in interviews that in his night terrors he saw Joan of Arc burning as well as his loved ones dying. During the band's stay at the house, they came across a painting of an angel above a fireplace. When a band member moved something, the painting was revealed to have a demon reaching for the angel's feet. Bassist Mikey Way became depressed whilst staying in the house so the band took the decision to remove him from the house. Drummer Bob Bryar also claimed that in the middle of the night, the bathtub in his bathroom would fill itself with water."
Sorry that this is very brief. However, this is not the entire meaning of the song. -
I think it's about the Patient going into a coma, or being put to rest. And the line "no way that i'm sorry for what i did" means he regrets nothing.
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So, I noticed that there weren't many line by line interpretations and no one else interpreted how I interpreted it either... So here goes.
From my point of view, this is about an abusive husband and a wife that still cares for him despite all his wrong doings. Let's analyze the lyrics, shall we?
Some say now suffer all the children
And walk away a savior
Or a madman and polluted
From gutter institutions
I believe this is about the husband beating his children and still 'walking away a savior' probably because of their optimism. He most probably works to feed them, send them to school, etc. and at other times 'a mad man'. His excuse was that he was polluted by 'gutter institutions' most likely because his family couldn't afford to send him to a good school and his whole life was lived in a 'gutter'.
Don't you breathe for me
Undeserving of your sympathy
'Cause there ain't no way that I'm sorry for what I did
At this point, he's talking to his wife who lives her life just for him and what he wants and even sympathizes for him. But the husband rejects this sympathy because he's not sorry for the things he did [e.i Verbal Abuse/Physical Violence]
And through it all
How could you cry for me?
'Cause I don't feel bad about it
Now, the wife is crying because something bad must have happened to her husband [fired from work/beaten by someone/gone to prison, others?] but the husband doesn't feel bad about it [Probably the prison thing is most appropriate. Let's go with that]
So shut your eyes
Kiss me goodbye
And sleep
Just sleep
The hardest part
Is letting go of
Your dreams
It's the husband's last night at home and he tells his wife to sleep. He knows there are people after him and his wife is the only one that knows what he did. At this point, he realizes that he has to let go of his dreams because he'll be spending the rest of his life in prison.
A drink
For the horror that I'm in
For the good guys and the bad guys
For the monsters that I've been
Now, still talking to his wife, the husband proposes a toast to the bad things that are going to happen to him for the things that he's done [there must be charges for domestic violence in there somewhere]. He refers to the police as 'good guys' and him as one of the 'bad guys'. And now, he recalls the 'monsters' that he has transformed into. A rebellious son, an abusive father, and a terrible father.
Three cheers for tyranny
Unapologetic apathy
'Cause there ain't no way that I'm coming back again
Now, he's toasting to the bad things that he's done. It's as though he's telling his wife at this point: 'I hope you're happy now' because he's never coming back even if he wants to [there ain't no way] cause he's probably serving a life sentence.
The hardest part's
The awful things that
I've seen
Here, the husband refers to the terrible things he's seen [probably caused by him too]. The look on his wife and children's face when he beats them [or probably another victim he killed].So, it's possible that he came back to his senses and he realized that he killed someone and saw 'awful things'.
Just sleep
Just sleep....
The husband's calmed down and just telling his wife to sleep and it's at this point that I also came up with another interpretation coinciding with this that... the husband murdered his wife after telling her all these things throughout the song.Thus, 'just sleep' because he's tired of her 'breathing' just for him when he's been terrible to her.
The blurred lyrics Gerard was singing in the background was actually: "Wake up!"
In that end part being drowned by a guitar solo and Gerard singing in the back, back, background, the husband is starting to freak out when he made his wife 'sleep' [a sign that he loved her] and is struggling to wake her up [but that's not gonna happen. She's dead]. And the theme of the song's chorus is that the husband wanted his wife to say goodbye and kiss him for one last time [but we all know that's not gonna happen. She's dead!]
And that... My friends... Is how I interpret this song.
Signing out,
Aya -
Wait, that totally makes sense! If Gerard suffered from sleep terror, the song could be referring to his experience. I'm sure we all know dreams can get pretty f***ed up, so maybe this song describes particularly vivid dreams of his. As for the chorus:
"...so shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye, and sleep..."
could be someone talking to him as in:
"Close your eyes, say goodbye cuz you may not see me as I really am in your dreams, and sleep."
The hospital patient idea also makes a lot of sense. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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I think this song is about the views The Patient (or anybody really) has on death and its reality. I think he's saying that its not dying thats the scary part, it's living. Because by the time you know your gonna die, you've already seen so much and suffered so much, that dying just isn't scary anymore, its just like going to sleep after a long hard day. He talks about all the things he's done wrong and all the wrong done to him, all the terror and fear of the unknown in the world, and he thinks that dying isn't the only part of death, life is the beginning and middle of death and dying is only the end. He thinks that the hardest part of death isn't dying at all... it's living!
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At the beginning it has Gerard's 'remixed 'recording of when he witnessed the the 9/11 terrorist attacks... and I believe that it is too say forget about your worries and just sleep...
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I always pictured this being about someone saying goodbye to their dying loved one. Saying all he has to say to that person, then kissing them goodbye and then they "sleep", or pass on. Then that person suddenly regrets everything and feel the loss of his loved one dying, and paniccs, telling them to "wake up!".
But yeah, the mcr guys probably meant it to be about the patient dying. -
If you guys ever read Anne Rice you would probably agree that the song captures the character Lestat de Lioncourt perfectly. Lestat was the beautiful, golden-haired bisexual vampire that was the main character in the majority of the Vampire Chronicles books. At the start of the song, a guy on a tape recorder describes how feels that someone is griping his throat. In the 1st book Interview with the Vampire, the character Louis de Pointe du Lac describes while being interviewed by a young man with a tape recorder how he was turned into a vampire by Lestat, becoming his boyfriend and fledgling forever. The part that goes "Some say now suffer a the children and walk away a savior," reminds me of how Lestat turned a 5 to 6-year-old girl into a vampire, and even though she suffered because she could never physically grow up, he never regretted making her into one. In his mind he was still a savior. "Or a madman and polluted from gutter institutions." Lestat almost exclusively fed from madmen and killers. "Don't you breathe for me. Undeserving of your sympathy, cause there ain't no way that I'm sorry for what I did." It sounds like something he would tell Louis about the making of the vamp girl Claudia and his lack of remorse. "And through it all how could you cry for me? Cause I don't feel bad about it." He has said many things like this throughout the series of books to various people(mostly lovers and people he wronged). "So shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye, and sleep. Just sleep" It's like he was talking to Louis at this point. "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." He has been known to love being evil and would probably pour blood into a wine glass a toast to it. He is a bit of a tyrant and at one time claimed he loved his vampirism. "The hardest part's the awful things that I've seen." He has seen some very traumatic things in his 200-and-counting year life. [Voice recording:]"...Sometimes I see flames. And sometimes I see people that I love dying and... It's always..." Louis telling the interviewer about the demise of Claudia whom burned to death in the sun. -
It's about insanity, and not accomplishing your dreams. The person does something bad, but doesn't want help, he's insane but thinks everybody else is wrong.
There trying to say that you shouldn't worry about things so much, because people feel so bad for this guy but he doesn't care. It's about having different opinions, and sticking to your own so much, and not caring about what other people think.
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