Sleep Token’s Gethsemane sits at track nine on their fourth studio album, Even In Arcadia (released 9 May 2025), a record that moves fluidly through black-metal bursts, R&B smoothness, and atmospheric experimentation.
But Gethsemane feels like the emotional linchpin — a six-minute centrepiece where the album’s overarching themes of identity fracture and emotional surrender reach their rawest point.
The title reaches back to the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus prayed the night before his betrayal.
Vessel, the band’s anonymous front, isn’t rewriting scripture here — he’s invoking a setting synonymous with personal agony and spiritual reckoning, pulling it into the intimate realm of a deteriorating relationship.
The opening lyric, “I wanted you to know, I’ve learned to live without it,” lands with a plainness that’s almost jarring.
This isn’t catharsis; it’s emotional debris. Vessel follows it with, “And even though it’s colder now, I no longer feel surrounded,” capturing that hollow space left behind after connection fades — not rage, not relief, just the absence of what was.
Lines like “You never saw me naked, you wouldn’t even touch me except if you were wasted” stand out for their brutal simplicity. Fans have called this a gut-punch moment, and it’s easy to see why.
It’s the painful memory you’d rather not admit: knowing you were only wanted under the haze of someone else’s detachment.
Later, the admission “I was your robot companion, you were my favourite colour” weaves a strange beauty into the heartbreak.
To be someone’s robot companion suggests a kind of programmed loyalty, while seeing them as a favourite colour hints at how much they saturated the speaker’s world.
These images sit side by side, pulling at the tension between devotion and emotional invisibility.
As the song moves on, the narrator reveals, “I was caught up on the person I tried to turn myself into for you.”
That’s the line where it all starts to buckle — the weight of self-contortion, the slow realisation that the love you tried to fit into might never have been real in the first place.
Vessel’s delivery doesn’t dramatise the sentiment; he delivers it plainly, almost wearily, which only deepens the cut.
The chorus, “I was in love with the thought that we were in love with each other,” reframes everything.
It’s not just heartbreak here — it’s the uneasy recognition of having clung to an idea, long after the reality had crumbled.
Midway through, the track surprises with a Midwest emo-influenced guitar riff that listeners have called out as a highlight, sneaking a restless energy under the song’s emotional weight.
Even In Arcadia as an album thrives on sonic shape-shifting, and Gethsemane taps into that strength by refusing to settle into one mood or texture.
By the time we reach the lines “We used to be a team, now we let each other go” and “Came in like a dream, put it down like a smoke,” the imagery shifts toward resignation. The cigarette metaphor lingers, suggesting something once hot and alive that now only clings faintly to memory, like smoke in fabric.
Toward the song’s close, there’s no grand, swelling resolution. “No one’s gonna save me from my memories / Nothing to lose, but I would’ve given anything to get closer to you and all your enemies” feels more like a surrender to the wreckage — not triumphant, not bitter, just truthful.
On an album already packed with genre-defying moments, Gethsemane stands out because it doesn’t hide behind sonic excess or lyrical abstraction.
It holds the listener in a quiet but relentless space, forcing them to confront the emotional wreckage without flinching.
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Sleep Token Gethsemane Lyrics
Intro
I wanted you to know, I’ve learned to live without it
And even though it’s colder now, I no longer feel surrounded
And you never listened to me, and that’s the thing I tell the others
You were my harlequin bride, I was your undercover lover, but no
You never saw me naked, you wouldn’t even touch me
Except if you were wasted
But you were trying your best, and that’s the thing I tell thе others
I was your robot companion, you were my favouritе colour, and, oh
Verse
I’m caught up on the person I tried to turn myself into for you
Someone who didn’t mind the push-pull parlour games
Someone who wasn’t always cryin’ on the journey back
Someone who didn’t feel the low blows either way
Thought I was waitin’ for you, when all along
It was you with the countdown kill switch
And it was me with the blindfold on
Pre-Chorus
And I was trying my best, and that’s the thing I tell the mirror
I was in love with the thought that we were in love with each other
Chorus
What might be good for your heart
Might not be good for my head
And what was there at the start
Might not be there in the end
Post-Chorus
Do you wanna hurt me?
Do you wanna hurt me?
‘Cause nobody hurts me better
Do you wanna hurt me?
Do you wanna hurt me?
‘Cause nobody hurts me better
Bridge
Came in like a dream, put it down like a smoke
We used to be a team, now we let each other go
Your cigarette ash still clinging to my clothes
I don’t wanna stick around, I just wanna let you know
Came in like a dream, put it down like a smoke
We used to be a team, now we let each other go
Your cigarette ash still clinging to my clothes
I don’t wanna stick around, I just wanna let you know
Came in like a dream, put it down like a smoke
We used to be a team, now we let each other go
Your cigarette ash still clinging to my clothes
I don’t wanna stick around, I just wanna let you know
Came in like a dream, put it down like a smoke
We used to be a team, now we let each other go
Your cigarette ash still clinging to my clothes
I don’t wanna stick around
Outro
No one’s gonna save me from my memories
Nothing to lose, but I would’ve given anything
To get closer to you and all your enemies
I’ve got a few of my own
And this throne didn’t come with a gun, so I’ve got a different energy
I still see you when the lights get low
I still hear you when I’m on my own
The parasites in the nightmares calling my name like, “Please just let me go”
This one’s for you and your problems, your good day job
Your bad karma, what are you afraid of?
The same trauma, show me what you’re made of
‘Cause you talk about your constant pain like I ain’t got none
And I’ve learned to live beside it, and even though it’s over now
I will always be reminded (Reminded, reminded, reminded)
