Born in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1969, Duncan Sheik grew up in South Carolina but spent many of his early years staying with his grandparents in New Jersey. Inspired to play the piano while there, he later switched to electric guitar and performed in bands throughout high school. A fan of musical theater from a young age, he also acted in school plays and attended the occasional Broadway show with his mother. While studying at Brown University, he played in a band with Lisa Loeb but began shopping his own demo tape soon after graduation. After moving to Los Angeles, he appeared with His Boy Elroy on a 1993 album for Epic, and spent several years writing songs before he signed a solo deal with Atlantic.
Atlantic released his debut album, the Rupert Hine-produced Duncan Sheik, in mid-1996, with the single "Barely Breathing" following later in the year. The song reached number 16 on the Hot 100, and after another single, "Reasons for Living," appeared on the soundtrack to the hit TV show ER in late 1996, the debut peaked at number 83 on the Billboard 200. Also produced with Hine, the follow-up, Humming, arrived on Atlantic in 1998 and reached number 163.
Nonesuch issued 2001's self-produced Phantom Moon, a more orchestral collaboration between Sheik and poet/playwright/lyricist Steven Sater, who provided its lyrics. It featured appearances by the London Session Orchestra and guitarist Bill Frisell. Though it failed to reach the Billboard 200, Sheik returned to the chart with his fourth album, 2002's Daylight, which reached number 110. It would be his final release with Atlantic. In 2002, Sheik also composed music for a New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Twelfth Night.
Continuing to split his focus between songwriting and composition, Sheik wrote the film score for the 2004 romantic drama A Home at the End of the World as well as music for the 2005 documentary Through the Fire. He offered up his fifth studio LP, While Limousine, on the Zoë label in 2006. Its insightful lyrics didn't shy away from sociopolitical territory. In the meantime, he had collaborated with Sater on a rock musical based on the 19th century German play Spring Awakening, a story concerned with teenaged sexuality. With a book and lyrics by Sater and music by Sheik, Spring Awakening opened off-Broadway in May 2006 before moving to Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre in December of that year. The show ran for over two years and took home eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. The Decca-issued cast album won a Grammy for Sheik and Sater.
Sheik composed the scores for projects including the Mary Stuart Masterson-directed film The Cake Eaters (2007) and the animated TV movie Little Spirit: Christmas in New York (2008) before presenting his next pop album, 2009's Whisper House. Featuring several duets with Holly Brook (Skylar Grey), the RCA Victor release spent a week at the number 181 spot on the Billboard 200. He scored the movie dramas Dare (2009) and Harvest (2010), then returned in 2011 with the covers album Covers 80s, which included backing vocals by Rachael Yamagata and Brook. Covers 80s Remixed appeared in 2012.
Next up for Sheik was a musical adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho featuring a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and music, lyrics, and orchestrations all by Sheik. It opened in London in 2013. He released another solo album, a song cycle titled Legerdemain (2015), and premiered the musical thriller Noir (2015) at Vassar College before American Psycho had its Broadway premiere in March 2016. The original London cast recording arrived on Concord Records the same month. Based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, another Sheik-Sater musical collaboration, Alice by Heart, opened off-Broadway in early 2019. The original cast recording was released by Ghostlight later in the year. 2019 also saw the off-Broadway opening of the musical The Secret Life of Bees, featuring music by Sheik and lyrics by Tony nominee Susan Birkenhead (Working, Jelly's Last Jam).
His first concert album, Live at the Cafe Carlyle, followed on Sneaky Studios/Missing Piece in late 2020. Compiled from a week of shows in October 2017, its set list spanned "Barely Breathing," songs from Spring Awakening, and previously unreleased covers of Radiohead and Tom Petty. An HBO documentary about the 15th anniversary concert of the hit musical, Spring Awakening: Those You've Known, premiered in May 2022 and was followed in June by Claptrap, Sheik's first solo studio album in seven years. It arrived on the New York-based Antifragile Music label.
Biography by Marcy Donelson
The Dawn's Request
Duncan Sheik Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Lose my head
Try to hide beneath my bed
And leave the television on
So I don't think of what's gone wrong
I beg the dawn
Break through, save me
Wake me from the dead
My weary head in your embrace
If I spin out
And off the rails
Build myself a bed of nails
And take the whole world down with me
Into my dime-story tragedy
Where will you be?
Break through, heal me
Sing to me
Kneel beside my bed
My weary head in your embrace
Wake up, sunrise
I may be alone but I'm alive
And I will find a way to you
Sunrise, you saved me this time
You never even had to try
And you opened up my eyes
Sunrise, you treat me so kind
I will lost, I was blind
And you opened up my eyes
In The Dawn’s Request, the singer is expressing their vulnerability and asking for help. The lyrics contain dark images of the singer cracking up, losing their head, and building themselves a bed of nails. They try to escape their pain by hiding beneath their bed and leaving the television on, but they eventually turn to the dawn for help. They plead for the dawn to break through, save them, and wake them from the dead. They want to be held in the dawn’s embrace and rescued from the dark thoughts that consume them.
As the song progresses, the singer begins to find hope in the sunrise. They acknowledge that they may be alone but they are alive, and the dawn has the power to open up their eyes and reveal the beauty in the world again. They sing praises to the sunrise for saving them from their own darkness and treating them kindly. The song is ultimately about finding hope and redemption through the power of the dawn.
Line by Line Meaning
If I crack up
In the case I lose my mind
Lose my head
If I go insane
Try to hide beneath my bed
I'll attempt to conceal myself from the world
And leave the television on
To block out the problems within my mind
So I don't think of what's gone wrong
To abstain from contemplating about my troubles
I beg the dawn
I plead for the arrival of the day
Break through, save me
Penetrate through my defences, rescue me from despair
Rescue me
To free me from danger and distress
Wake me from the dead
Revive me from my hopeless and melancholic state
My weary head in your embrace
My tired and troubled mind held by your reassuring presence
If I spin out
If I completely lose control
And off the rails
Venturing out of my expected path
Build myself a bed of nails
Putting myself in a situation of immense pain
And take the whole world down with me
Dragging the world into my own disaster
Into my dime-story tragedy
Into my cheap and pathetic story of misfortune
Where will you be?
Asking where my saviour will be
Break through, heal me
Shatter my emotional barrier, restore my hope
Sing to me
Soothe me with your music and melody
Kneel beside my bed
Lower yourself to comfort me
Wake up, sunrise
Addressing the morning sky
I may be alone but I'm alive
I may not have any companionship, but I still exist
And I will find a way to you
I am determined to reach out to you
Sunrise, you saved me this time
The dawn served as my rescue this time
You never even had to try
The dawn's help came naturally, without effort
And you opened up my eyes
Dawn helped me gain new insights
Sunrise, you treat me so kind
Dawn is very compassionate towards me
I will lost, I was blind
I was lost and deluded
And you opened up my eyes
Dawn helped me gain new insights
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: DUNCAN SHEIK
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind