Keeps Me Sane – English Lyrics

• By: Tyler Nance
• Album: Keeps Me Sane - Single

Lyrics & Translation

Learning a language through music is a powerful tool, and Tyler Nance's 'Keeps Me Sane' offers a fantastic opportunity for English learners. The song's raw and honest lyrics provide a glimpse into authentic, modern American storytelling. By exploring the vivid imagery and colloquialisms in the song, you can deepen your understanding of cultural nuances and emotional expression in the English language. What makes this song special is its relatable message of finding your own way to cope with life's challenges, a universal theme that transcends language barriers.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
drown /draʊn/ B1	verb - to die by being underwater and unable to breathe; to cover or be covered completely by water.
heat /hiːt/ A2	noun - the quality of being hot; high temperature.
sobriety /səˈbraɪəti/ B2	noun - the state of being sober (not drunk); seriousness, temperance.
rain /reɪn/ A1	noun - drops of water falling from clouds.
flood /flʌd/ B1	verb - to cover with water, especially in a destructive way; to fill or become full of something.
pane /peɪn/ B2	noun - a single sheet of glass in a window or door.
mull /mʌl/ C1	verb - to think about carefully; consider (often 'mull over').
brain /breɪn/ A2	noun - an organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull, functioning as the coordinating center of sensation and intellectual and nervous activity.
crazy /ˈkreɪzi/ A2	adjective - insane or mentally deranged; highly impractical or foolish.
sane /seɪn/ B2	adjective - of sound mind; not mad or mentally ill; reasonable and sensible.
pain /peɪn/ A2	noun - highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury; emotional suffering.
blame /bleɪm/ B1	noun - responsibility for a fault or wrong. verb - to assign responsibility for a fault or wrong.
reverie /ˈrevəri/ C1	noun - a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream.
overthink /ˌəʊvərˈθɪŋk/ C1	verb - to think about something too much or for too long.
irony /ˈaɪrəni/ B2	noun - a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.
wander /ˈwɒndər/ B1	verb - to walk or move in a leisurely, aimless, or casual way.
creek /kriːk/ B1	noun - a small narrow stream or river.
rush /rʌʃ/ B1	verb - to move with urgent haste; to do something with great speed.
insanity /ɪnˈsænəti/ C1	noun - the state of being seriously mentally ill; extreme foolishness or irrationality.
keep /kiːp/ A1	verb - to continue to have or hold (something); to maintain or cause to continue in a specified condition or position.

Key Grammar Structures

• Crows are laughing while I'm drowning in the summer heat.

  ➔ Present Continuous for simultaneous actions with "while"

  ➔ This sentence uses the present continuous tense ("are laughing", "I'm drowning") to describe two actions happening at the same time. The conjunction "while" connects these simultaneous events.

• I'd be better with you next to me.

  ➔ Modal Verb "would" for hypothetical situations (implied Second Conditional)

  ➔ The modal verb "would" (contracted as "I'd") is used here to express a hypothetical or unreal situation in the present or future, suggesting a conditional statement where the "if" clause is implied.

• I work upon and praying for a little bit of rain.

  ➔ Parallelism with Ellipsis

  ➔ This line demonstrates parallelism, where two verbs ("work upon" and "praying") are connected by "and". There's an ellipsis (omission) of the auxiliary verb "am" before "praying", which is common in informal language or song lyrics to maintain rhythm. The full grammatical form would be "I work upon and *am* praying...".

• But I'm flooded like the water in the window pane.

  ➔ Passive Voice

  ➔ The passive voice ("I'm flooded") is used when the action's recipient ("I") is the focus, rather than the doer of the action. It describes a state resulting from an external force.

• Might sound crazy, but it keeps me sane.

  ➔ Verb + Object + Object Complement

  ➔ In the phrase "keeps me sane", the verb "keeps" is followed by a direct object ("me") and an object complement ("sane"). The complement describes or renames the direct object, indicating the state that the object is kept in.

• But I'm the blame.

  ➔ Idiomatic/Colloquial use of "the blame"

  ➔ This is an idiomatic or colloquial expression. While the more grammatically standard phrase is "I am to blame" or "I am *at* fault," "I'm the blame" is a common informal way to express taking full responsibility for something, treating "blame" as a concrete noun.

• In a world that's overtaken by the reverie.

  ➔ Relative Clause with Passive Voice

  ➔ This sentence features a relative clause ("that's overtaken by the reverie") which modifies the noun "world". Within this relative clause, the passive voice ("that's overtaken") is used, indicating that the world is the recipient of the action of being overtaken.

• Losing sleep from overthinking all the irony.

  ➔ Preposition + Gerund

  ➔ The phrase "from overthinking" illustrates the use of a gerund ("overthinking") immediately following a preposition ("from"). Gerunds, which are verb forms ending in -ing acting as nouns, commonly appear after prepositions to show cause or manner.

• Under the weather while I'm wandering, walking up the creek.

  ➔ Idiomatic Expression

  ➔ "Under the weather" is an idiomatic expression meaning to feel slightly unwell or sick. Idioms are phrases where the meaning cannot be understood from the literal meanings of the words themselves.

• This dream I'm chasing's gonna drive me to insanity.

  ➔ Reduced Relative Clause

  ➔ "This dream I'm chasing" is a reduced relative clause. The full form would be "This dream *which* I'm chasing" or "This dream *that* I'm chasing." The relative pronoun (which/that) and sometimes the form of 'to be' are omitted when the relative clause is in the active voice and the pronoun is the object of the clause.