‘Sweet Dreams’ by Koe Wetzel - Lyrics & Meaning

As Koe Wetzel has been peppering out new songs from his highly-anticipated 2024 project, 9 Lives, the releases have only managed to top each other.

Starting with lead single, 'Damn Near Normal;' its title track, also called 'Black Cat' and the Jessie Murph duet, 'High Road,' it's so far proven to be the makings of one of the best albums of the year.

With his third single, 'Sweet Dreams' – a song written just 24 hours after the lead single – that fact has only become crystallized, showing the Texas rocker in rare form as he delivers a moody, almost lullaby-esque tune that finds him baring a much more vulnerable demeanor that ever before.

It was an instant success for the seasoned hitmaker, with the song racking up nearly 11 million streams and debuting at No. 47 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as No. 11 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Integrating a healthy dose of R&B influences, something not usually heard across Wetzel's discography, 'Sweet Dreams' was born out of the team of writers – Amy Allen, Sam Harris, Gabe Simon, Josh Serrato & Wetzel – hitting a roadblock on another song entirely.

As he told Billboard, Wetzel had written down the song's main hook in his phone a few weeks prior, as well as a separate guitar lick, that the team threw together to create the instant-hit that we know now.

Produced by Simon, the song opens with a tight bass drum and clean electric guitar playing off of each other, combining to form a truly enchanting melody before Wetzel's vocals even come in. As a snappy drum beat joins in and everything picks up steam, it's a perfect cocktail that can't go wrong.

"A man like me would keep it to himself
A bigger man would say it to your face
Yeah, I ain't doing good and you can tell
Was I the only one you couldn't save?

I hate to be the reason that you're crying
The way you always knew when I was lying
And breaking your heart was getting tiring
I knew I had to let you go"

'Sweet Dreams' opens up with Wetzel already seemingly at a crossroads. Noting that he's wired to keep things to himself and not share, he counters this thought by saying that someone better than him would just say what he needs to directly to its recipient.

Giving us some more context, it seems as though Wetzel is going through a rough patch, likely connected to mental health, but he asks a pointed question to his partner about him being the only person she wasn't able to bring back from the darkness.

Knowing that his behavior and lies are the reason for hurting her, he acknowledges that he also knows he's been breaking her heart over and over again and that it's simply time to call it quits and let her be free.

"It's hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed
It's so hard to have sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
It's so hard to have sweet dreams"

The main hook of this song, "it's hard to have sweet dreams when I'm such a nightmare," shows some of Wetzel's signature turns of phrase as he wields his golden pen.

Drawing attention to the fact that he's no stroll in the park to be with romantically, he underpins it by explaining that he can't just let himself have a good thing, but rather, he has to self-sabotage by not communicating and ultimately ruining the relationship at the first opportunity. However, he also draws this process out.

Now, he's left sitting with his decisions and actions, alone, sleepless and missing the girl that could've been his redemption.

"I bet you're out living guilt free
The only thing you battle is your memory of me
Shit, I ain't slept in weeks
Been trying everything from Ambian to THC"

Opining on how she's living her life without him, Wetzel knows that she doesn't feel any guilt of weight from the split because she didn't really do anything wrong. All she has to do is her damndest to forget about him entirely.

Making mention of his lack of sleep from being so torn up over their split, he sings that there's no substance or remedy that he can find that will give him any sort of meaningful peace about the situation.

"It's so hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed

It's so hard to have sweet dreams
And I thought you should know that
I been getting no sleep
And I prolly deserve that
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed
It's so hard to have sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
It's so hard to have sweet dreams'"

Repeating the previous chorus, the second run through now adds an extension to the catchy section of prose where he further chronicles the struggles he's been having and the feelings associated with the breakup.

Wanting his ex to know how miserable he is, Wetzel underlines his severe lack of sleep and how he knows he likely deserves the anguish he's experiencing.

"The nights keep gettin' longer
And you're still in my head
So I turned on all the lights
And I wrote you this"

As the song winds down and we arrive at the bridge, we see Wetzel start to come to terms with what he's done and the position he's put himself in.

While the sleepless nights keep getting longer and longer, all he can think about is her and the mistakes he made. Accepting that he won't be getting any sleep on this night, in particular, to put pen to paper and write this song for the girl he's lost.

In some ways, you can view it as an explanation, in others an apology, but in reality, it likely will only exist as a way for him to have closure for breaking off their love and ruining another good thing in his life.

"It's so hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed"

As we mentioned earlier, 'Sweet Dreams' has a distinctly R&B-influenced sound, which is something that Wetzel did very intentionally.

“I had an R&B type song in mind, like something off Usher’s Confessions album, with a badass drumbeat and a really cool melody,” Wetzel shared upon the song's release. “When we got to the Sonic Ranch in El Paso, we tried it. We stepped back to look at the song and got really excited about the way it came out.”

Talking to Billboard about the personal meaning behind the song, Wetzel explained that most of his songs spawn from personal experiences, as well as relationships and other hardships he's faced over the years.

"This song wasn’t about a certain personal relationship, or a past relationship. It was just kind of multiple relationships — and then bouncing it off people who had had similar problems with relationships and then making it all come together," he offered.

Commenting on the sonic change heard on 'Sweet Dreams,' Wetzel added: "The last five albums have kind of had the same similar sound. So this is me kind of getting away from that and trying a new sound... It’s one of those songs that kind of rounds out the whole sound of the record. So I think we’ll just let it have its own day in the sun — and that’s why we put it out as a single. We didn’t want it to get overlooked in the record."

A man like me would keep it to himself
A bigger man would say it to your face
Yeah, I ain't doing good and you can tell
Was I the only one you couldn't save?

I hate to be the reason that you're crying
The way you always knew when I was lying
And breaking your heart was getting tiring
I knew I had to let you go

It's hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed
It's so hard to have sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
It's so hard to have sweet dreams

I bet you're out living guilt free
The only thing you battle is your memory of me
Shit, I ain't slept in weeks
Been trying everything from Ambian to THC

It's so hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed

It's so hard to have sweet dreams
And I thought you should know that
I been getting no sleep
And I prolly deserve that
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed
It's so hard to have sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
It's so hard to have sweet dreams

The nights keep gettin' longer
And you're still in my head
So I turned on all the lights
And I wrote you this

It's so hard to have Sweet Dreams when I'm such a nightmare
I don't wanna talk about it rather not go there
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed

It's so hard to have sweet dreams
And I thought you should know that
I been getting no sleep
And I prolly deserve that
When I find a good thing I burn it down slow
Only see your face now when my eyes are closed
It's so hard to have sweet dreams
Sweet dreams

It's so hard to have sweet dreams
(Sweet dreams)

––

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