playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
playgirl, why are you dancing when you could be alone, hey playgirl
playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
playgirl, choking on cigarettes to get you along, hey playgirl

hey playgirl, hey playgirl
northern lights catch you coming down
sleep your way out of your hometown

playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
playgirl, why are you dancing when you could be alone, hey playgirl
playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
playgirl, choking on cigarettes to get you along, hey playgirl

hey playgirl, hey playgirl
northern lights catch you coming down
sleep your way out of your hometown
hey playgirl, hey playgirl
northern lights catch you coming down
sleep your way out of your hometown
hey playgirl, hey playgirl
northern lights catch you coming down
sleep your way out of your hometown
hey playgirl, hey playgirl
hey playgirl, hey playgirl

foreign coin on a telephone box
a question mark on a calendar
an empty seat on the alpha line
a sorting code, an account number

hey playgirl, hey playgirl
northern lights got you coming down
sleep your way out of your hometown



Lyrics submitted by starless

Track duration: 03:51


Playgirl song meanings
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24 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:On some live versions the playgirl is playguy, so the song is not gender-specific. The character could be anyone.
    Flag Wardraculaon April 17, 2013   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:The () is my interpretation

    Playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
    (Your true self, ask you, the playgirl, why you decides to sleep away yourself by predicting yourself, and leave no space to what’s beneath you, why you pour out yourself, you are so busy figuring out how you are going to be and act, that you live in tomorrows world, and the question is, why play out yourself away from your existence)

    Playgirl, why are you dancing when you could be alone, hey playgirl
    (Why dance and be in the centre when you’re not yourself)

    Playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
    (Your true self, ask you, the playgirl, why you decides to sleep away yourself by predicting yourself, and leave no space to what’s beneath you, why you pour out yourself, you are so busy figuring out how you are going to be and act, that you live in tomorrows world, and the question is, why play out yourself away from your existence)

    Playgirl, choking on cigarettes to get you along, hey playgirl
    (You choke your own cigarettes ´cause you go against yourself, only to live life like that)

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Northern lights catch you coming down
    (The side of yourself that you play out, sees what you’re doing)
    Sleep your way out of your hometown
    (You don’t want to have any contact with the true you, so you think it down, sleep your way out of hometown, so you don’t need to meet yourself, predicting yourself, play yourself out, and live in denial)

    Playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
    (Your true self, ask you, the playgirl, why you decides to sleep away yourself by predicting yourself, and leave no space to what’s beneath you, why you pour out yourself, you are so busy figuring out how you are going to be and act, that you live in tomorrows world, and the question is, why play out yourself away from your existence)

    Playgirl, why are you dancing when you could be alone, hey playgirl
    (Why dance and be in the centre when you’re not yourself)

    Playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl
    (Your true self, ask you, the playgirl, why you decides to sleep away yourself by predicting yourself, and leave no space to what’s beneath you, why you pour out yourself, you are so busy figuring out how you are going to be and act, that you live in tomorrows world, and the question is, why play out yourself away from your existence)

    Playgirl, choking on cigarettes to get you along, hey playgirl
    (You choke your own cigarettes ´cause you go against yourself, only to live life like that)

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Northern lights catch you coming down
    (The side of yourself that you play out, sees what you’re doing)

    Sleep your way out of your hometown
    (You don’t want to have any contact with the true you, so you think it down, sleep your way out of hometown, so you don’t need to meet yourself, predicting yourself, play yourself out, and live in denial)

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Northern lights catch you coming down
    (The side of yourself that you play out, sees what you’re doing)

    Sleep your way out of your hometown
    (You don’t want to have any contact with the true you, so you think it down, sleep your way out of hometown, so you don’t need to meet yourself, predicting yourself, play yourself out, and live in denial)

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Northern lights catch you coming down
    (The side of yourself that you play out, sees what you’re doing)

    Sleep your way out of your hometown
    (You don’t want to have any contact with the true you, so you think it down, sleep your way out of hometown, so you don’t need to meet yourself, predicting yourself, play yourself out, and live in denial)

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl

    Foreign coin on a telephone box
    (You let yourself be untouched)

    A question mark on a calendar
    (You don’t know if you can let go of your regulation of yourself and leave yourself be)

    An empty seat on the alpha line
    A sorting code, an account number

    Hey playgirl, hey playgirl
    Northern lights got you coming down
    (The side of yourself that you play out, sees what you’re doing)

    Sleep your way out of your hometown
    (You don’t want to have any contact with the true you, so you think it down, sleep your way out of hometown, so you don’t need to meet yourself, predicting yourself, play yourself out, and live in denial)
    Flag Monreflectionson April 11, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think it is about a "bad girl" in a small town who is doing immoral things such as smoking and dancing. She thinks that these things will help her escape from her small town life. However, I think the song is saying that maybe if she just stopped what she was doing, she might realize that her small town is not so bad.
    Flag yeaokayweirdoon February 11, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:this beautiful song tells me about a girl who does "things" she doesnt want to but she knows she has to to escape. she knows that all she has is leaving and inconsistancy to keep her feeling alive and not alone.
    Flag frankxavieron January 08, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I always took this song as one about procrastination - playgirl is not necessarily a literal name, but something that the narrator yells at themself - asking why aren't you doing something productive. I took sleep to mean literally sleep or idleness.
    Flag ChrisOfSpadeson February 09, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Who are the Northern Lights?

    "the Northern Lights are just a band for hire
    playing class reunions without end" - Cracked LCD

    Playgirl is a girl who spends most of her existence at nightclubs, usually hanging off someone's arm, hoping to find someone to take her away from her boring life.

    Based off a quick google search, Alphaline is fromerly a train service used in regional parts of the UK including Liverpool, home of the 'tron.
    Flag noluciferon October 18, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I'd agree with the stripper theory. She sounds like someone I know who is.

    I'm not a Brit, so I am not too familiar with "Alpha Lines" and such, but...I think the song is more literal and concrete in meaning. Poetic, but less figurative.

    Northern Lights as coke-Yep.

    Foreign coin/Telephone Box-She visits clients out of the club for "extras" and doesn't use her own number so she hooks-up with them via public means. The foreign coin could be metaphorical or a poetic snippet in her observations while she is waiting for a "John" to answer.

    Empty seat/Alpha Line-This is where she meets-up with her clients and the empty seat will be soon occupied by said client. Again in a public anonymous place.

    Question Mark/Calendar-On her day "off" she has no clients or club commitments (probably a "subsistence stripper") and since her life is all party/drugs/trickin', she knows nothing else to do.

    Sorting Code/Account Number.-This is easy. They are wire transfers from various tricks who deposit money into her account anonymously for "services rendered".
    Flag adobe gillison May 29, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"Playgirl" is a stripper who plays men for money. She's a small town girl who wants to get out of it by dancing. She doesn't like what she's doing but fakes it by snorting coke. She dances for men when she could "be alone". And she's young but lives a hard lifestyle that most young girls don't ("why are you sleeping in Tomorrow's world")

    The "northern lights catch you coming down" refers her coming down off of cocaine and she smokes ciggarettes to keep her buzz up ("choking on cigarettes to get you along").

    She is like a "foreign coin on a telephone box" because she is trying to fit an image that isn't her (like using a foreign quarter in a payphone---you think it'll work but it doesn't)

    Her life is "a question mark on a calendar" because she's fallen into the lifestyle and will never get out of her small town. It also symbolizes that she's no longer planning her future and instead lives day-by-day to feed her drug addiction.

    "An empty seat on the alpha line" refers to her place in "civilian" society that she left behind to become a working girl.

    "A sorting code, an account number" is what drives her through life in order to fuel her chemical needs.

    The song suggests that money is never easy and that you'll always fall into the stripper lifestyle, no matter how "good" you are or how many dreams you have...you'll throw them away in the end.
    Flag radiator_ladeeon February 19, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Yeahhh...
    I just think it's about a girl who has no driving force in her life. She's just going through her days with 'everlasting happiness' on her mind, and doesn't realize that all her sleeping around and flashy lifestyling (if that's even a word, but whatever) will eventually run out and get her into trouble.
    I dunno, I just picture a girl in a club whenever I hear this song.
    Flag NunyaBizon November 22, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:This song is about a play girl, who sleeps around, "chokes on cigarettes" to get her by, and has a generally sleezy lifestyle. Her life has no meaning past being a playgirl.
    When it says, "a forgien coin on a telephone box", perhaps it is suggesting that she is at payphones trying to get "clients" seeing as how she sleep around.
    And when it says,"a question mark on a calendar"
    becuase she has no definate plan.
    "An empty seat on the alpha line", could mean she empty inside or that her life is nothing,so it's empty.
    "a sorting code, an account number", is pretty much the epitimy of this playgirl.
    Flag CoinXoperatedXJackon July 21, 2007   Link

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