While You Sleep

[Intro – soft lo-fi piano, faint vinyl crackle]
[Room tone – creaking stool, distant car outside window]
[Spoken softly into mic]
["She’s asleep right now… but maybe this’ll find her."]

[Verse 1 – lead vocal, hushed tone]
[Lead vocal] You breathe like the tide, slow and deep
[Lo-fi piano] I sit at your side while you're lost in sleep
[Lead vocal] You mumble things I don’t understand
[Guitar fingerpicking enters] But you reach for me with your dreaming hand

[Ambient pad slowly swells]
[Lead vocal] The night wraps ‘round you like a coat
[Lead vocal] I memorize every line you wrote
[Lead vocal] In freckles, scars, in how you sigh
[Lead vocal] Even the dark don’t lie

[Pre-Chorus – soft backing harmonies begin, slightly autotuned]
[Backing vocals – whispered]
["Do you feel me near?"]
["Would you still stay?"]

[Lead vocal]
And I wonder, do you feel me near?
Would you still stay if I disappeared?

[Chorus – fuller vocal, soft falsetto and breathy texture]
[Lead vocal] While you sleep, I let it spill
[Fingerpicked guitar continues] All the things I can’t say when the world stands still
[Lead vocal] Like how I’m scared to be the man
[Lead vocal] That you believe in when you hold my hand

[Backing vocals – doubled whispers]
["But right here…"]
["It’s all okay."]

[Lead vocal] You keep my monsters locked away
And while you sleep… I find the truth
I’m still in love with you

[Instrumental Interlude – lo-fi guitar and ambient swell]
[Soft reversed piano notes, breath mic’d close, slight chair creak]

[Verse 2 – lead vocal, quiet and intimate]
[Lead vocal] You twitch like you’re dancing with stars
[Lo-fi piano resumes] Your dreams stretch out further than ours
[Lead vocal] And I just hope I make the frame
[Lead vocal] In that silent movie you never name

[Lead vocal] You don’t see the way you shine
[Lead vocal] With your face all soft in moonlit lines
[Lead vocal] If peace could take a human form
[Lead vocal] It’d be you, breathing warm

[Pre-Chorus – falsetto harmonies float behind]
[Backing vocals – airy falsetto, soft]
["I keep quiet…"]
["Don’t dare speak…"]
["Your silence makes me weak."]

[Chorus – slightly cracked falsetto, rising emotion]
[Lead vocal] While you sleep, I tell the truth
[Guitar continues] To the ceiling, to the night, to the echo of youth
[Lead vocal] Like how I’ve failed, and how I try
[Lead vocal] To be the man who won’t say goodbye

[Backing vocals – layered harmonies]
["In your stillness, I let go"]
["Of everything I’ll never show"]

[Lead vocal] While you sleep… I fall apart
But it don’t break your heart

[Outro – whisper, no harmonies]
[Lead vocal] So rest, my love, don’t mind the rain
You saved me once… just by staying

Male, live, bedroom pop vocals, GarageBand drums and loop.