Hi there. My name is Ryan O'Neill and this is the Sleeping at Last Podcast where I have the the sincere pleasure and

honor of getting to tell you about how my songs get made. So thank you so much for pressing play. I really deeply appreciate you.

Today I get to talk to you about a brand new song. This one belongs to my Atlas 3 series of songs and it's called a sleep.

A sleep is obviously the most meta sleeping at last song that I've ever put out. But it's the second song in the Atlas 3 series and is the obvious sibling song to the song that came before it, which is called awake.

And I sort of like to think of awake and asleep as a diptych of sorts. Two images that make one picture together but they're separate and individual.

Kind of like day and night and if you played them on a two song loop, I hope that they would feel very complimentary and representative of day and night.

Before I dive into the song, I wanted to share some personal news. There's not really a proper or right way to talk about this and I certainly don't like the idea of starting out the episode on such a sad note.

But here we are in March, my mother passed away and I really can't even believe that those words are coming out of my mouth. For those of you that don't know, I was incredibly, incredibly close to my mom.

In addition to being really, really close, she was actually the sleeping at last manager and she helped me in really every conceivable way in my life and in my music.

And I wrote a little bit about this, her role in sleeping at last. There's going to be a link in the show notes.

If you're curious to kind of hear more about how much she has meant to me and how much she has meant to this thing called sleeping at last.

But it truly cannot be understated. Her love and support is why sleeping at last exists. It's why sleeping at last is possible.

And honestly, I just miss her so much. She was my sounding board for literally everything in my life, especially with sleeping at last.

So as I wrote the songs, I'll call her to show her the latest line of lyrics or when the song was nearing the finish line.

She's who I would call and show and ask for feedback. She would listen to every single mix, every single draft of every song.

I would show her even every episode of this podcast before it released just to make sure it all made sense.

And she really was my trusted compass in my life. And especially in creative work, I feel like where there's just lots of moments that press into my insecurities.

She is the person I would call who would make me feel okay about the lyric I was second guessing or the whole song that all of a sudden I decided maybe isn't.

Isn't good. She's the person that would be like kind of this level set for me that would make me feel better about my insecurities.

She made me feel good. She was incredibly honest, but at the same time she did the thing that every amazing mother does, which is just completely poor love into me and support into every single thing that I was doing.

So I will miss her beyond words and I'm sure that I will be needing to talk and process the gravity shift in my life that is losing her in many, many, many songs in the future.

But I just feel really, really lucky to have had her in my life and to have had her support and love her patience was limitless literally for me.

...