This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
The fortune queen of New Orleans
Was brushing her cat in her black limousine
On the backseat were scratches from
The marks of men her fortune she had won
Couldn't see through the tinted glass
She said, "Home James" and he hit the gas
I followed her to some darkened room
She took my money, she said "I'll be with you soon"
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
She told me more about me than I knew myself
She dealt two cards, a queen and a three
And mumbled some words that were so strange to me
Then she turned up a two-eyed jack
My eyes saw red but the card still stayed black
She said the man you love is secretly true
To someone else who is very close to you
My advice is that you leave this place
Never come back and forget you ever saw my face
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
She told me more about me than I knew myself
So I ran home and crawled in my bed
I couldn't sleep because of all the things she said
Then I remembered her strange perfume
And how I smelled it was in my own room
So I sneaked back and caught her with my man
Laughing and kissing till they saw the gun in my hand
The next thing I knew they were dead on the floor
Dark lady would never turn a card up anymore
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
Was brushing her cat in her black limousine
On the backseat were scratches from
The marks of men her fortune she had won
Couldn't see through the tinted glass
She said, "Home James" and he hit the gas
I followed her to some darkened room
She took my money, she said "I'll be with you soon"
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
She told me more about me than I knew myself
She dealt two cards, a queen and a three
And mumbled some words that were so strange to me
Then she turned up a two-eyed jack
My eyes saw red but the card still stayed black
She said the man you love is secretly true
To someone else who is very close to you
My advice is that you leave this place
Never come back and forget you ever saw my face
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
She told me more about me than I knew myself
So I ran home and crawled in my bed
I couldn't sleep because of all the things she said
Then I remembered her strange perfume
And how I smelled it was in my own room
So I sneaked back and caught her with my man
Laughing and kissing till they saw the gun in my hand
The next thing I knew they were dead on the floor
Dark lady would never turn a card up anymore
Dark lady laughed and danced and lit the candles one by one
Danced to her gypsy music till her brew was done
Dark lady played back magic till the clock struck on the twelve
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae
Dark Lady Lyrics as written by John Robert Durrill
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Awesome song! Everybody else pretty much covered the meaning... one of my favories. Very Cher.