Sleepwalking by All Time Low

Album: Tell Me I'm Alive (2022)

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Songfacts®:

People sleepwalk because of an imbalance in their sleep-wake cycle. This leads to the brain partially activating during sleep, causing a person to perform activities while still in their slumbers. Some common triggers for sleepwalking include sleep deprivation and stress.

Here, All Time Low's Alex Gasgarth is away touring, and he's missing his love interest. He likens the pain of her absence from his life to sleepwalking.
Wide awake, but it just feels wrong
Stay in bed 'til the whole year's gone
Wake me up when it's over
Feel like I'm sleepwalking when you're gone

Alex Gasgarth and All Time Low guitarist Jack Barakat wrote the song with producer Andrew Goldstein. According to Gaskarth, "Sleepwalking is a reflection on time spent away from whatever it is that makes you feel alive, on time lost to the weight of dragging feet and drifting thoughts."

As Gaskarth, Barakat and Goldstein worked on the song, they pondered their position in a rapidly changing world in light of the pandemic and thought about how they missed their friends, family, touring, shows, art, and everything else they connect with. "Our time spent away from our most beloved dreams felt like being on cruise-control, going through the motions in a trance," Gaskarth said.
Alex Gaskarth, Andrew Goldstein, and Zakk Cervini co-produced the track. The same three helmed All Time Low's 2020 album Wake Up, Sunshine.
All Time Low released "Sleepwalking" on October 7, 2022. It reached #1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart in February 2023, the band's second visit to the survey's summit following the 18-week reign of "Monsters" featuring blackbear, in 2020-21.

Comments: 1

Jimbo99 from Palm Coast, FlI think the lyrics are more about relationships for those that aren't the most stable. I mean the first verse is about someone that moved on to something else, playing games that way, running away rather than working out whatever issues. And of course he misses her, to the point of substance abuse. Medicate until his brain is numb, that could be anything from alcohol to harder substance abuse. And he's in a depression & funk over the way it is, sleepwalking thru his life. He claims to be more vested into the relationship & she would be moving on to the next better deal ? It works both ways though, the female being the more stable & a dude that won't commit ?

"What a shame, what a shame, what a shame
It's all fun and games 'til you don't wanna play now
Run away, run away, run away
It's easy to see, but it's harder to say now"

"Movin' on to someone else
I'm a picture left on your shelf
And the dream's a lie I tell myself
Feel like I'm sleepwalking when you're gone"

"Medicate 'til my brain goes numb"

"Stay in bed 'til a whole year's gone
Wake me up when it's over"

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