From the album Childish Things (May 28, 2025)
Sleeping Beauty isn’t under a spell — she’s under surveillance. And no one gets out with their eyes closed.
On Sleeping Beauty, Erich Russek and Poets in Heat strip the fairytale to its bones and rebuild it as a modern folk lament, soaked in political fog and poetic defiance. Told in Dylan-esque stanzas, the lyrics unfold like verses of a dream you’re not sure you want to wake from — one where kingdoms collapse, kings rise, and lies bloom like vines.
Beauty isn’t just a woman in a bed — she’s a symbol for a sleeping society, lulled by disinformation, abandoned ideals, and a sandman who delivers not rest, but ridicule. The song doesn’t whisper “once upon a time.” It declares: Wake up. Open your eyes. They’re lying to you — and it’s working.
Musically restrained and vocally deliberate, Sleeping Beauty walks the line between folk ballad and spoken prophecy, with a chorus that reads like a revolution just beginning to stir.