Insomnia - "I can't get no sleep"

It was 1995, I was in high school and dance was played in clubs throughout Europe. One particular song reminds me of that time, although I didn’t even like it that much when I was a high school girl.

I was 12 or 13 years old, and I was always a bit frightened by Faithless’ dance song ‘Insomnia’.  I’m not sure if that was because of the intense song, or also because of the music video. I can’t remember what music I particularly loved, but it would probably be anything but ‘happy’ hardcore, trance and this kind of dance music.

This changed when I was a student. I went to big clubs and rediscovered Faithless’ ‘Insomnia’ hit. It was one of those songs, which seemed to keep going on forever, but gave a great excuse for dancing, and losing yourself amid all these people on the dance floor.

Now, it’s about ten years after that time, and quite often, I’m being reminded of that song when I’m lying in bed. While I’m lying awake, wishing to sleep and getting annoyed by watching the clock counting the minutes of sleep to be lacked. “I can’t get no sleep” and "I need to sleep, although I get no sleep", are the sentences of this Faithless song, which gets a totally different meaning when you’re not dancing in a club. Suddenly, it’s not a song that I like for dancing around at 5 am in clubs, keeping my sleep away, but a song reminding me how horrible it is when you wish for sleep.

“I can’t get no sleep” turns into kind of a mantra, not a positive one, but rather a pessimistic one.  

A lack of sleep, or not being able to sleep, even though I’m exhausted, means yawning and a lack of concentration throughout the following day. They developed into ongoing irritating habits of me and appeared to have a cause, or actually multiple causes, namely pains.

Pains made me turn around every 5-10 minutes, made me incredibly tired fighting against them, or acknowledging them, and these pains made me worry loads. Most of the time, not very surprisingly, at night.  “I can’t get no sleep”.

And what became my nightly habit when I was lying awake, or actually still is? I turn on the sleep function of the radio in my bedroom, spray a bit of lavender spray on my pillow, and make myself hot milk or just drink a glass of water. Lying in bed listening to ‘Chill FM’, ‘easy listening for the insomniacs’, makes me calm and sends me back to sleep before the 59 minutes are over.

Thankfully, very often this helps, and I don’t need all the stuff Faithless sings about when he “can’t get no sleep”.