Noise du Jour’s Sleep Deprivation: “Sleepwalk” by Santo and Johnny Farina

I am not a man that slumbers peacefully. My irregular comatose states are plagued with an endless menagerie of horrors that my brain, to its credit, takes great pains to obfuscate from my waking mind. But fragments of my nocturnal trauma find their way into the day; all the more terrifying for the half-remembered haze through which I see them.

Strangely, the soundtrack to many of these nightly horror-shows is Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny Farina, and has been since I was but a wee sprog. When the first, all-too-familiar squealing strains of the song begin to echo through my somnolent skull I know, with a bone deep dread, that the night has terrors in store. In spite of this song’s inextricable association with my inability to truly rest I find it soothing; as if the beginning of my nightmare soundtrack indicates it’s time to relax into the comforting powerlessness of absolute fear.