Atlantic by Sleep Token – What’s It Mean?

After seeing Sleep Token live at The Salt Shed in Chicago with my brother-in-law, Steve, they rose to a whole new level in my head. More songs were getting added to my Spotify playlists, I was researching the band more online, and I was spending some time on Genius delving into the lyrics. And then I had to stop because I wanted to know what Atlantic meant to me. It had ultimately become my favorite song and I didn’t want to be biased by the opinions of others as to what the meaning might be. I could always go back and read other interpretations after I had completed writing down my complete breakdown of the lyrics. So, for at least two weeks of averaging over 80 listens per week, I began taking notes and organizing my thoughts. When I had finished, I shared my Google Doc with Steve, since he’s a HUGE Sleep Token fan and he offered some thoughts back. Below is the result of my work, including comments from Steve. I’d love to hear what YOU think the song means or YOUR  thoughts on my/our interpretation(s). And now, on to the breakdown…

Call me when they bury bodies underwater
It’s blue light over murder for me

I believe Vessel (in a suicidal state) uses the phrase “Call me” to allude to being called home or having his number called; however, he wants it to happen in a fashion where he’s just swallowed up and disappears. Perhaps he doesn’t even want the fanfare of a funeral or the guilt of the gathering of everyone he hurt even though he doesn’t know that he’s going to see that later in the story. There’s a peaceful sort of rationalization and something poetic about having it be that way where he just slips away and disappears under the blue light and this thought process  relieves him of having to own up to the fact that he took his own life by essentially murdering himself. When you are underwater, especially in natural and open water, there’s a shimmering blue light above you and that’s the picture I think he’s trying to paint. He’s metaphorically drowning and being pulled down by the weight of the world while wishing he could quiet literally be buried underwater. Also, they say there’s a sense of peace at some point near the end when you drown. And what is someone who is contemplating suicide wanting more than anything? In my opinion, it’s to finally be in a peaceful place or state versus the persistent pain they exist in.

CRUMBLE LIKE A TEMPLE BUILT FROM FUTURE DAUGHTERS
TO WASTELAND WHEN THE OCEANS RECEDE

I think the visual he’s referring to is one of sand castles built by kids that won’t come into existence as his own fades away. Also, without directly saying the word “sand” I think that it’s tied to a small thread in this song  (foreshadowing). The word “Crumble” is such a perfect word here because it speaks to a structure that is being demolished by either an outside source (like the waves rolling in) or a source inside like its own weight on a weakening infrastructure. Also the use of the word “temple” is interesting in the sense that in Christianity, the body is referred to as a temple. So to put this loose “couplet” into a picture for the viewer: The literal human bodies (present as in Vessel’s and future as in his potential offspring) crumble from existence and are washed away to leave just a wasteland when the oceans comes and takes them. The landscape looks erased and returned to normal when the water recedes, pulling its haul to the bottom of the ocean. 

The line “built from future daughters” is so enigmatic but sounds so important. I think it connects to the nature of the ocean. As the tides, ebb and flow, receding indicates that it’s a pattern. If it connects to his merry morning that decends into despair, so to does his pattern of destruction. Passed from one to the other……or his decisions that are destructive now will be felt by future daughters.

MERRY IN THE MORNING, EARN YOUR BITTER FODDER
IT’S EASIER TO TRY NOT TO EAT

I was stuck on the word “morning” here. I couldn’t find official lyrics and I didn’t want to dig too deep because I want this reaction to be solely mine, not a patchwork of what I think and what I found on the web. So after many, many listens (literally hundreds) and trying to work in a word that seems to thematically join a happy word like “merry” – I am taking some liberties. I am thinking maybe it’s a homonym and the real use case of the word is spelled: Mourning. With that in mind, “merry in the mourning” as a phrase could be that weird phenomenon that happens when someone is in an ultra depressive state. They think that being gone is actually better. So on one hand, being relieved (almost merry) at the thought of being gone makes it so, when the “mourning” starts, that means the deed is done and people are now on a better path without him in Vessel’s eyes. However, when the other, more contradictory, thought is allowed to seep in, the hurting of loved ones turns to bitter fodder. I looked up fodder to see how it might be used here, and it’s “coarse dry food for livestock” – so what he’s “earned” is something he’s forced to chew on. As a side note, I find it somewhat intriguing that water, which is a big theme here, would help with the chewing and breakdown of something so dry. Anyway, now he’s forced to “chew on” aka “contemplate” what he has done. Not only does he have to chew on it, but he has to be able to swallow it; therefore, it’s easier to try not to eat. In this case, I think the phrase means, “It’s easier to not think about it” – it’s a hard thing to swallow. 

I have no real idea for this one. My feeling before reading yours is the idea of starting off the day with a good outlook, merry in the morning. However, falling into old patterns as the day goes, earn your bitter fodder- kind of like you are your own worst enemy. Fodder also has the connotation as inferior material, which he would certainly feel like. I think the ocean concept works with this idea as well. The tides come in and go out, the ebb and flow of life. He simply can’t break the cycle- to break the negative cycle would be “easier to try not to eat.” That idea also goes with the previous line- wasteland as the oceans recede. 

One idea i had originally was that the morning was youth. As life goes on, and depression builds, you earn your bitter fodder.

SO FLOOD ME LIKE ATLANTIC, BANDAGE UP THE TRENCHES
ANYTHING TO GET ME TO SLEEP

This is the first time we see that the suicide attempt may have failed. While he wants to be flooded or drowned and swallowed up by the ocean, he may have now been found in real life with slit wrists. “Bandage up the trenches” seems to me like someone applying life-saving measures to the trenches he dug into his own wrists.

“Anything to get me to sleep” – On the surface, it could be as simple as physical sleep to escape this world (and the realization of the pain he might be causing) and drift off into  the dream world. Or it could be “get me to Sleep” – as in being ushered to meet the entity.

I WOKE UP SURROUNDED, EYES LIKE FROZEN PLANETS

JUST ORBITING THE VACUUM I AM

Waking up, he is surrounded by his loved ones who are staring at him with seemingly unblinking eyes. He unwittingly is at the center of their attention. I find it interesting on a number of levels that he uses the word “vacuum” to describe himself. The multiple definitions use phrases like: “completely devoid of matter” and “state of isolation” and even “a space partially exhausted (as to the highest degree possible) by artificial means. “Devoid of matter” really got me because it can loosely translate to having no worth if you look at it through that lens of depression where we often feel like we don’t matter. Lastly, the vacuum of space is not only a near-perfect vacuum, it’s lethal.

THEY TALK ME THROUGH THE DAMAGE, CONSEQUENCE
AND HOW IT’S A PAIN, THEY KNOW, THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND

There doesn’t seem to be anything cryptic in the first line of this couplet (for lack of a better word), but does further the story that there was a failed suicide attempt that resulted in some damage. This could be both the physical damage to Vessel as well as the mental damage his loved ones are now dealing with.

Now, the second line I find very interesting. It can be read two ways, in my opinion. The first way to read it is that Vessel is dealing with a pain that they know they don’t comprehend. They cannot fathom feeling down to the point of wanting to be gone, nor can they truly empathize. But the other way to read it is that they are saying it’s a pain they know and Vessel is adding onto the end with “they don’t understand” – which could be what he’s thinking when those around him might be saying things like “Oh, I know how you feel.”

You had asked me in a text about this line. Listening, I believe it insuates that those who are there to comfort him talk of the damage and the consequences of his decision but admit that they know they don’t understand what he is going through. Reading it,however, with the commas in place, it could be read as if they are overstepping on what they think they know. They clearly cannot understand. The next line makes me think that he struggles with them. He is “trying not to crush into sand.” He is orbiting in his vacuum because he is truly alone.  They do not get it. I think of it as the same thing when you visit a funeral home, no one knows what to say and if you haven’t lost the same loved one, you simply can’t understand it.

SOBBING AS THEY TURN TO STATUES AT THE BEDSIDE
I’M TRYING NOT TO CRUSH INTO SAND

His loved ones around him cry, but remain frozen representations of the pain he inadvertently inflicted on them. It’s a stretch, but you can also potentially tie into the supernatural phenomena of religious weeping statues that are so affected by the state of things, they weep tears and/or blood. Either way, it would be such a heavy burden to bear to actually see the pain in the wake of a suicide or, in this case, just the attempt. That heaviness is crushing to statues and temples (as mentioned in the first verse), reducing seemingly solid structures to their origins: sand. And, of course, sand fits into the theme of land touching the ocean(s). So Vessel lies in this bed, surrounded by reminders of his actions, yet probably in a more depressive state given that he has to witness and carry the weight of this consequence.

SOBBING AS THEY TURN TO STATUES AT THE BEDSIDE
I’M TRYING NOT TO CRUSH INTO SAND

His loved ones around him cry, but remain frozen representations of the pain he inadvertently inflicted on them. It’s a stretch, but you can also potentially tie into the supernatural phenomena of religious weeping statues that are so affected by the state of things, they weep tears and/or blood. Either way, it would be such a heavy burden to bear to actually see the pain in the wake of a suicide or, in this case, just the attempt. That heaviness is crushing to statues and temples (as mentioned in the first verse), reducing seemingly solid structures to their origins: sand. And, of course, sand fits into the theme of land touching the ocean(s). So Vessel lies in this bed, surrounded by reminders of his actions, yet probably in a more depressive state given that he has to witness and carry the weight of this consequence.

CALL ME WHEN THEY BURY BODIES UNDERWATER

IT’S BLUE LIGHT OVER MURDER FOR ME

Consider the intensity shift in the music here. Now that we have been able to see through Vessel’s eyes and all he’s dealt with since his suicide attempt, the meaning stays the same for these lines as it did when they acted as the opening of the song; however, I think we get a greater understanding of how much and why he wants it to be two things. First, he wants it to be the act of something else (like the ocean) that he can say took him and made him disappear. Secondly, he wants it to be understood as a drowning and in no way, shape, or form have the label “murder” attached to his actions. This prevents the blood on his hands we just heard about a few lines before.

CRUMBLE LIKE A TEMPLE BUILT FROM FUTURE DAUGHTERS
TO WASTELAND WHEN THE OCEANS RECEDE

The intensity continues, driving the point home from this couplet. It, too, holds the same meaning as before, but has a certain desperation to it that is evidenced in the heavier, chaotic musical accompaniment.

DON’T YOU WAKE ME UP
(DON’T WAKE ME, DON’T WAKE ME)
(DON’T WAKE ME UP)

The music gives way to a dream-like state. Even in the softer voice, the word choices let you feel that this is more than a request – it’s a command. “Don’t you wake me up” I feel like Vessel has finally fallen asleep or has finally arrived to meet Sleep. If you wake Vessel up, you remove him from either his dream world (his only escape from reality) or you take him away from Sleep, the entity mentioned earlier. The vocal treatment has a slight underwater feel to it and as the last note hits and fades, you feel like you are…

…drowning.

Below is a great recording of the Sleep Token concert at The Salt Shed in Chicago. All video credit goes to the YouTube channel My Concert Collection!