The Neighbors Are Sleeping

A six part music project to listen to in one sitting, in the quiet, late night hour

It’s eleven o’clock on a Monday evening. A thin veil of light spills out of Manhattan, travels two miles, and saves me from the darkness. My windows serve as binoculars into the rooms my neighbors occupy. They are asleep. My roommates are asleep. My phone is asleep, which is to say I have decided everyone I love is asleep. Peacefully. 

I sit at the piano. Softly, slowly I find a melody. Then words. Then a rhythm. Eventually a story. No one has asked me to whisper, but I do anyway. 

A siren screeches, a cat growls, and a group of friends laugh as they pass by my open window. The city’s parts form a choir that crescendos throughout the night. It’s funny that in a place so loud, there is a pressure to be so quiet.

I fear I might wake the neighbors. 

The Neighbors Are Sleeping is a collection of six “trutheens” written in this quiet hour.

Truthteen: Little truth

Lisa O’Neill is an Irish singer-songwriter. On a trip to London, in 2023, she had £20 in her pocket but couldn’t manage to buy herself a cup of coffee. Why? Charles decided London was a cashless town...or something like that.

“When cash was King” is Lisa’s trutheen. A trutheen is what Lisa calls a “little truth.” It’s not quite a fully-fledged song but a fact or belief of a moment that you think might be worth carrying with you.

Anni's piano (left) and my keyboard (right).

These six trutheens have taken shape over the last two years, between two pianos and two people. They began, often, in my room in those late, quiet hours and filled out in Anni’s studio.

I first went to Anni to learn the piano. She’s given me so much more than the tools to read notes and play scales. She’s giving me a compass and confidence to make art out of any moment. And, to let it be a little messy and weird and raw and unfinished. Because is art ever really finished?

Each little truthteen was recorded in Anni’s studio on GarageBand in two hours. The title track of this project, “The Neighbors Are Sleeping,” was recorded in one take. It was the last thing we recorded. I wrote it first as a poem, and on a sunny afternoon, Anni encouraged me to improvise and find a song with these words. You hear the fingering it out in the track.

Now, it’s yours. It’s all yours.

I will take you track by track, and share a short story or a few words that has to do with how each truthteen was made. The best way to listen is to hit play on the top of this post while you read along. If time allows, I encourage you to cozy up and take in the full project in one sitting, in the stillness of the lonely, late-night hour.

» LYRICS

The city is screaming
The storm is swelling
The choir is screeching 
But the neighbors are sleeping

The head is swirling
The addict is singing
The pillar is shaking
But the neighbors are sleeping

The statue is staring
The shore is smoking 
The sun is shivering 
But the neighbors are sleeping 

The heart is shutting
The time is skipping
The possibility is sitting
But the neighbors are sleeping

The color is scaring 
The dream is sailing
The knot is stopping 
But the neighbors are sleeping 

And so am I
I wonder, why? 

On this day

On a Saturday night in April of 2022, I celebrated a friend’s birthday in Red Hook. No trip to Red Hook is complete without a bottle or two of beer at Sunny’s. The heartbeat of the harborside bar is strongest on a Saturday night during Tone’s Bluegrass Jam. Every seat is filled and, though the picture doesn’t do it justice, the room bloats with people, more of which are musicians than patrons. It’s a “drinkin’ church” whose doors have been (mostly) open since 1890 and where bluegrass has taken the altar every Saturday for 20 years.

A friend once told me, if the world was ending, he’d be at Sunny’s. That’s where I’ll be too. And I hope it’s bluegrass night.

Sunny’s on said night in April.

There is something hypnotic to me about live music, especially music I am unfamiliar with. It sends me into a trance and the first thing I usually find once I fall into the flow of the rythm is a mantra, a few words I can repeat.

I heard the musician Lucy Dacus say on a podcast once “I don’t want to rip off musicians so I try not to get too inspired by music.” I didn’t want to rip off musicians either so I took this to heart and tried not to get too inspired by music, instead turn to books, art and conversation, as Lucy suggests. That’s what might make music smarter and better. But who ever requested “smart music?”

All music at some level is mimicry. We don’t get music today without the music of yesterday.

The cacophony at Sunny’s naturally washed over me. At my “if the world’s ending spot” celebrating one of the people I’d come to love most in my time in New York, I started to think about people I’ve fallen off from wishing a happy birthday to. To them, my wish: On this day I hope you’re ok.

The song ended up taking on an eerie, darker tone than I meant by it. Ironically, at the same time I wrote this song, my mom and dad got in the habit of sending the family group chat weekly texts of old photos from deep in the archive. Each text started “on this day.” The memories from those photos are all pretty happy. I hope you can find some of that spirit in this turtheen too.

Mom and Joe <3

» LYRICS

I go walking, another me is talking
Going on and on and on and on
Trying to take it back

I hear you
I hear then
And it keeps on echoing

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

No day sounds the same
Dark turned inside out
New shades to me, I am still figuring it out

I feel it fade
Slip away
Did this happen?

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

I’m looking for peace of mind in the simulation
Spinning around the constellation
We were estranged until it all was the same

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

On this day
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok
I hope you’re ok

Deja Vu

There was a season where I started seeing everyone I’d ever met in my short time living in New York whenever I left my apartment.

One day I hurried onto a packed subway car during rush hour, wedged my way into the last empty bit of standing room, and grabbed hold of the railing above a row of seats only to look up and be nose-to-nose with the man I’d taken one guitar lesson with months ago. On a Friday night with friends at an East Village bar I’d never been to, I came out of the one-stall bathroom into a mini-alcove to physically run into a guy I talked to all night at a party maybe a year before. 

A dozen or so run-ins like this happened over the course of a few weeks. Most were with people I had only met once or twice. The exchanges were meaningful, but they were fleeting. We didn’t trade information to stay tethered together online and witness each other lives at a distance. They had fallen into the backdrop of New York before they came into full focus. It felt impossible to keep seeing people I knew. I thought I only really knew a small handful of people.

Deja vu isn’t really the right word for what those encounters felt like but it was the closest word I could find at the time. It felt like maybe the brief moment I had with that other person was much bigger than the timestamps on the surface. Maybe there was some reason we showed up for one another again.

In the movie Past Lives, I was introduced to a Korean word that might better explain the run-ins—In Yun. In Yun is about fate and the connections between people. Everyone you meet, whether it be someone you invest time in getting to know or merely brush shoulders with on the street, is someone you’ll encounter again in another life. In the past life or the next life, you might find time and space to care for one another, go deeper, hold closer.

Could this be our reminder we’ll meet again? Has that feeling ever happened to you?

» LYRICS

I walk into this party
Through the back door
Not sure how I got here
Please just ignore

In this city there’s millions
And I know all but five
And they’re all at home in bed
But I found you here instead
And we’ve played this game before
But I’ve forgotten your name

I’m getting Deja vu
Has that ever happened to you?
When you round your corner and you’re on your block
Have you ever found something you thought you forgot?

I’m seeing double in double time
Like I knew you my whole life
It’s good to see you
You’re there I greet you
Then you're gone like I never had you

Deja vu
Has that ever happened to you?
When you round your corner and you’re on your block
Have you ever found something you thought you forgot?

Deja vu
Deja vu
Has that ever happened to you?

Mood Ring

If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, a mood ring is the best friend of an early 2000s girl. In my pre-teens, I collected enough mood rings, probably from the quarter vending machine during birthday parties at the local bowling alley, to garnish each of my ten fingers.

Thank you, Reddit for this nostalgic throwback

Yellow meant I was nervous, blue normal, deep blue happy, orange loveable, and black stressed.

The message was always flimsy. Like a magic eight ball, flipping a coin, or cracking open a fortune cookie, it held more chance than truth.

This song is about a night I went out dancing, when the colors didn’t match their promises. The blue sparkles from the disco ball, dark corners smothered in fog, flashy and fringey bright dresses, and yellow fluorescent bathroom lights didn’t offer the dreamy, indulgent escape their hews and tones alluded to.

People diverted eye contact. Their minds traveled beyond their bodies. I felt myself holding my breath.

I left that night with a feeling I couldn’t scrub off, like the green stain from cheap metal where the mood ring hugged a younger me’s finger.

“The breath is searching for the breeze.” It’s searching for a sign within me. Not around me.

» LYRICS

Trick mirror points in the wrong direction
Wearing shiny clothes but they don’t reflect us, they don’t reflect us
You’ve got that mood ring on and it turns shades of blue
But that ain’t you, that ain’t you

Can you look me in the eyes when we are dancing?
Look me in the eyes like you have answers
Look me in the eyes, the eyes, the eyes

The breath is searching for the breeze
Come back, come down, come on to me

The breath is searching for the breeze
Come back, come down, come on to me

Cover charge if you want to cause trouble
Wearing cowboy boats in a concrete jungle
Fog cuts, beat drops
Turn around she’s even more lost, even more lost

Heat rise, what’s your sign?
Moon whispers come another time, another time

The breath is searching for the breeze
Come back, come down, come on to me

The breath is searching for the breeze
Come back, come down, come on to me

In the ring

Happiness I indulge in, sadness I can sit with, fear I can quiet, disgust is manageable, surprise is well, surprising, but anger—when I see it, I run. When I started experimenting with songwriting, Anni attempted to prompt me with the core emotions, “sing something angry” or “approach with surprise.”

When an emotion was presented as a naked word, without a story attached to it or the heat of a moment to ride on, it was hard to find words. I went home after one of our sessions and literally Googled “what is an emotion” because the prompts sent me on a mini trip.

Then, one day, Anni had me pull three cards from The Deck of Character, which has since become a beloved creative tool. Drunken sailor, wrestling wring, and flower. “Write a song with those themes and images,” she said.

I left on my bike and pedaled downhill out of Queens and back into Brooklyn, the Empire State Building ushered the rest of the skyline into a distant view. “You caught me in the ring.” I kept repeating it. I found a rhythm with each pedal. It was hypnotic.

The more I repeated “You caught me in the ring” I realized it was an angry song. No one chooses to be angry. It catches you and you get stuck in it.

This is a turtheen about letting anger run its course, letting it pass through you, and then knowing when it’s time to get out of the ring.

It’s the most dissonant production-wise of the project, the effects on the piano and voice rubbing against each other. Just like anger, it’s uncomfortable for me to listen to at points.

» LYRICS

You caught me in the ring
I am ready to throw down

You caught me in the ring
Like a drunken sailor ‘bout to run my mouth

You caught me in the ring
Someone stop the clock

Throwing punches in the sky
Sing and miss this time
Find me on the down and out
You caught me in the ring

You caught me in the ring
Quiet, it’s all in the eyes

You caught me in the ring
Flowers can’t work this time

You caught me in the ring
Someone stop the clock

Throwing punches in the sky
Sing and miss this time
Find me on the down and out
You caught me in the ring

I am tired of this knockout
Burnout, turn my head inside out
I am cornered into this bad attitude
Freeze frame, look the same
Jab for jab is how we play
But that don’t get us far

Throwing punches in the sky
Sing and miss this time
Got to get out of the ring
Getting out of the ring
I’m getting out of the ring

Eggshells

If you made it this far, thank you. Something in me felt I needed to save this one for last. The little truth that showed up here seems to keep surprising me in new ways. I am still making sense of its meaning.

This too was inspired by The Deck of Characters. I pulled an egg, graveyard, and elves.

In the most roundabout way, the egg brought me to a memory I hold close—to a time when I felt I could dance on my broken parts, embrace the uncomfortable and unknown instead of tiptoe around it.

I’ll let the song do the talking and if you spot the elves, I’ll give you a dollar.

» LYRICS

I drift in and out of sleep
I don’t get up until you untangle me
You call me to the kitchen to stay
Pour me a cup of tea so earnestly 

Fells like someone sitting on the shelf
Watching you turn me inside out 

Sticky floors, table for two
We conspire quietly, you wish I could choose
Our whispers grow and laughs leak through
These walls weren’t made to hide that too

They stir on the other side
In their I realize 

We’re dancing on eggshells
Confetti of yesterday, proof that we made
Something of our day
Something of our day
Something of our day

A dozen done so I up and run 
I wish I could make it on my own, thought it could be fun
But I find myself with this new habit
Surrounded by new faces, they’re missing your traces

In the kitchen alone again
With a ghost of you, my friend 

We’re dancing on eggshells now
Confetti of yesterday
Proof that we made
Something of our day

Closing notes

I made The Neighbors Are Sleeping with one room in mind—my room. It’s the room I’ve spent the most time in over the last four years, and it’s where I’ve started to process the little truthes shared with you in this project. Just as process is, the project is imperfect in every way. But I’m constantly relearning you have to let people in if you want to go further. You can’t get anywhere far alone.

I share this project in hopes that it might lead me, and others, to new rooms. Maybe the next music project will fill the kitchen for dinner parties or the back room of Sunny’s or a jazz bar with a big grand piano or a campfire on a warm summer night or a tiny desk.

If you enjoyed the project, and want to make something in the next room with me, I’d love to hear from you.

If you want to be the first to get invited to the next room we make music and art and a mess in, subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Yours,
Katie

CREDITS

» This project doesn’t exist without Anni Rossi. Production and any additional instruments to piano or voice you hear are Anni. She’s everywhere in the influence of these songs. One sentence can’t possibly pinpoint how special she is, so I interviewed her so you can get to know her too.

» The format was inspired by

Hrishikesh Hirway

’s Song Exploder, Matt’s

FogChaser

, and Maggie Rogers’s Notes from the Archive.