Sleeping By Myself


I should have known there was someone else
Down below I always kept it to myself
Now I believe in nothing
Not today as I move myself out of your sight
I'll be sleeping by myself tonight

I could never go to no one else
The hurt don't show but who knows, time will tell
I believe in nothing
But the pain and I can't see this turning out right
Oh I'll be sleeping by myself tonight

Forever be sad and lonely
Forever never be the same
Well I close my eyes and wait for a sign
Am I just waiting in vain?

Oh I believe in love and disaster
Sometimes the two are just the same
I'm beginning to see what's left of me
Is gonna have to be free to survive

And I'll be sleeping by myself
I'll be sleeping by myself
I'll be sleeping by myself tonight.


Alongside Without You, this is my favorite track on Ukulele Songs. The song is a near perfect mix of the jaunty, carefree sound of the ukulele and the sense of loss and longing that Eddie tries to invest the album with. His heart is broken, but he's going to put on a brave face and force himself to smile and move on, because what other option does he have. He's not so much trying to convince himself that he is going to be as much as accept the fact that he has no choice but to be, and so there is a sense of resignation to this song, but there is something almost freeing about it--not quite uplifting but understanding that we have to learn to live with what we cannot have and make our peace with what we cannot change.

It is one of his stronger vocal performances in recent memory, invested with a sense of breaking and intimate vulnerability that is harder to capture with the songs that the other people in the band write for him. All of the recent vocal tics and enunciations that many people find a little offputting are present, but there is so much sincerity in the performance that you never really notice. Even though this was presumably recorded years after the events in question, he takes you right back to the moment where he realizes he's going to be okay, since he has to be.

Lyrically it is nothing bad but nothing special, although I'm so convinced by the performance that I never really noticed until I typed the lyrics into this post. There are some awkward phrasings, but since it's such a game performance it comes across more like an immediate, unreflective and spontaneous recognition of his situation--the thoughts are not more poetic and fleshed out because there hasn't been time to make them that way. Having said that, the central image of sleeping by yourself is inspired, and captures the loss at the heart of the song (he echoes this later in the best lyric in Goodbye) without having to use the word love. It's clearly not the sex he's missing, as much as the presence, the warmth, the fact of this person's existence in his life, manifesting itself in the bed, which can be either the most intimate space in a home or, when something is gone, the most cold and lonely, expansive and empty--a cocoon or a desert. The song captures the transition from the one to the other, and the commitment to walk the desert until you find the person capable of transforming it once again.

I'm a fan of the last verse too. Simple, but heartfelt and pregnant with a growing awareness that makes it compelling.

4 stars. One of my issues with Ukulele songs is that between Sleeping By Myself and With You he captures almost everything he wanted to accomplish on that album in two of the first three songs, which makes most of the rest of the tracks inferior echoes of these superior songs.

This is a great song. 4 stars.

Great song and great write-up - good work, stip!

Another 4-star vote.

Great read. Thanks Stip.
4 stars. One of the best on there.

Nothing on Ukelele Songs will ever be able to match up to anything on Into the Wild

4 stars. One of my favorites on the album.

My favorite Uke Songs... song.

One of my favorites on Uke Songs, for sure, but I find myself having no desire to read or write in detail about any of these tunes. The album is nothing more than a wonderful series of gorgeous vocals set to an unobtrusive ukulele and nice lyrics. I will not read stip's header post, and I will not read too much in to these songs. I just want to close my eyes, lay on a hammock under the porch of a beach cabin on the gulf, and drift away...

Oh, I should say that "Sleeping By Myself" fulfills the duties of a track two like a champ. Anyone with me?

Agreed on both of your posts. i didn't read stip's header post either.

I voted average but this song doesn't do much for me. I probably should have voted for myself.

This made me think of Parting Ways.

I concur with the above concenus. In it's context a solid song with a pretty flow to it. I really like the sound of Ed's voice on this compared to the lyrics he is singing but that's true for much of the album.
****

I enjoyed your write-up, but take exception to this. I mean, if you really think the rest of the record is inferior, that's another story, but I think "Ukulele Songs" specifically succeeds by virtue of the fact that it's one of those records that takes one idea and one aesthetic and goes at it from a number of related but slightly different angles. Some of my favorite records are that way--Springsteen's "Nebraska," Costello's "North," Dylan's "World Gone Wrong" and "Good As I Been to You." It's much different than the little-of-this-little-of-that approach taken by "Into the Wild," which I love, but ultimately much prefer the miniature, temporary world created by "Ukulele Songs."

Well I do think the rest of the songs are inferior, and because of that it is totally possible I am not giving the others their due. You are right. In fairness to the album Light Today (which I like), Satellite, and Longing to Belong are all doing different things. Probably the others are all various variations on the overarching theme. I guess i just don't think the subtle differences are enough (in terms of music, performance, or lyrics) to overcome the fact that they seem (to me) like inferior songs.

I like Uke songs more than I did when I wrote the review for TSIS, which was basically written after giving the album like 3 listens. But it is a middling album for me made enjoyable primarily be the fact that the uke is such a pleasant instrument and you don't expect an album full of broken hearted songs to sound so light and carefree in its sadness. If Uke songs was a two song single with Sleeping By Myself and Without You I would be singing its praises. But it's tough when your album peaks by the third song and continues for another 13.

Man we so don't even sort of agree.

I think the songs in the middle--"Goodbye," "Broken Heart," "Satellite," "Longing to Belong"--are the best originals of the bunch, and the covers at the end frame the record in the aesthetic context in which it truly belongs.

I'm totally gonna play this later.

it would appear we do not. I do really like the covers at the end though. Dream a Little Dream is the lullaby I sing Elayna every night I put her to bed.

I want to agree with Stip about the first few songs accomplishing want the album wants to be in near perfect form, but I still think goodbye/broken heart/satellite/longing to belong/etc to be near or solid 4 star songs