“Asleep” by the Smiths. However I like the version from the
movie Sucker Punch, sang by Emily Browning, the main character in Sucker Punch
and Violet from A Series of Unfortunate Events (the movie was awful, but the
books were pretty good.).
Again, listen to the song before you read this. The lyrics
are almost nothing compared to the music.
Soft piano line and violins, the song sounds like a lullaby.
You don’t even need the lyrics. At points in the song, the violins take over
the piano and the song almost sounds happy or less sad. Almost hopeful when the
bells come in.
This song is so obviously about
suicide I’m surprised I didn't notice the meaning until I listened to it a few
times. The song is so beautiful it distracts you from the depressing background
of the lyrics. I think this is definitely about suicide or thinking about
suicide. What we never know is whether the guy in the song goes through with it
in the end. It's more about longing to be somewhere else, longing to be
somewhere better than the place you are. Eventually, the person thinks the only
way out of their situation is to take their own life. They're that desperate to
be in another world forever. It almost
feels like the character is pleading for help in the beginning, and throughout
the song loses hope. Towards the middle of the song, the character proclaims she
wants to be dead, and tells her friends and or family to not feel bad, and that
is what she wanted. Towards the end of the song she begins to think about the
afterlife, "There is another world, there is a better world. Well there
must be", and how good it is promised and said to be. This makes her
increasingly depressed. The outcome is obvious. "Goodbye.."
Morrisey (the writer of the Smiths)
really did well with the lyrics. The repetition adds to the desperation and
depression. Especially the goodbyes at the end, then piano fading to a music
box. That brings me to a point; I think the music box at the end represents the
character looking back on her life (her life flashing before her eyes), and
specifically her childhood, where maybe the root of her depression lays.
Personally, I like the version sang
by Emily Browning more, because she has a gentler voice than Morrisey and her
accent isn’t so prominent. Morrisey almost sounds whiney- where Browning sounds
desperate and lost.
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