Sleeping (The Band song)

"Sleeping" is a song by The Band, first released on their 1970 album Stage Fright. It was co-written by Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel. This and “Just Another Whistle Stop” are the only two songs Manuel receives credit for on the album. The Band never featured the song on a live album.

The song features Manuel on lead vocals and the piano, Rick Danko on backing vocals and bass, Levon Helm on drums, Robertson on electric guitar, and Garth Hudson on the Lowrey organ and accordion.^[1]

Following the style of “King Harvest (Has Surely Come),” the song has no true chorus. Instead, the verses that are sung softly are given greater importance. However, Robertson’s guitar solo comes in the middle of the song, rather than the end. Lyrically, the song is rather simple. Using magnificent imagery, Manuel and Robertson dramatize how sleeping provides man with a necessary escape from the hustle of life. This motif can be traced back to “When You Awake,” another song co-written by Manuel and Robertson just a year earlier and released on the self-titled The Band album.

The song is featured in a karaoke scene in Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom (2008), sung by Rinko Kikuchi.

References