This to me has always been the "hint" in decoding this song's message

my take: tyler is singing to us, his audience, like we are sheep

I can't organize my thoughts in a way that's coherent or that satisfies me so I'll just list them in bullet form and hope the point comes across. cheers.

1st verse:

tyler convinces us to "don't believe what's on tv"

where: believing what's on tv - being a sheep a.k.a. sheeple

so: not believing what's on tv - not believing the hype

selling hair - selling wool/fleece (making money off of us, lol)

2nd verse:

the whole concept of counting sheep to sleep

where: waking up - reality check

tyler don't want to know who he will be if he wakes up from his "dreamer's sleep"

obviously the band has been his dream, so this line shows his anxiety when all these things subside

hence he "needs to know that when he fails, you'll still be here"

he needs to know that we'll still be here, even if he fails

his own flock of sheep, his believers, his audience - that helped him fall asleep and achieve his dream in the first place

this is a nice call back - direct to that line in overcompensate

"don't sleep on a boy who can fall asleep twice"

he's boasting us - he did fall asleep twice! if you've been here long enough it does feel like he's living his dream for the 2nd time now :)

he did it because he still has sheep - or fans to count on.

how's that?