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"
There's no time to give at all
I cause you grief and blow my hatred
Further in your mind
You reach, I run, you fall
On skinned knees you crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
So you sit and think of love
I wait, hate all the more, I fall
On skinned knees I crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
Now there's time to give it all
I put my fears behind again
On skinned knees we'll crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
I cause you grief and blow my hatred
Further in your mind
You reach, I run, you fall
On skinned knees you crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
So you sit and think of love
I wait, hate all the more, I fall
On skinned knees I crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
Now there's time to give it all
I put my fears behind again
On skinned knees we'll crawl
I want to set you free, ah
Yeah
Recognize my disease, ah
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
You're there crying, I feel not a thing
Drilling my way deeper in your head
Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead
Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
about loving people who hurt us. and hurting people we love.
RIP layne
this is about the head games men and women play with eachother. how no one ever gets ahead in doing so because one person is always hurting or confused in some way but will always crawl back to them.
This song changes with each verse.
In the first verse, he's saying that he can't give because he is causing grief, that he is consumed by hatred, and that he is taking this out on his loved one. She is still reaching out to him because she loves him, but he runs away. She falls and gets hurt because of his actions. He runs away because he is hurt. His very idea of love is confused, and he's really afraid. He knows he's hurting her, and maybe he hates himself for it. It's his "disease." That's what the chorus is about.
Come to the second verse. There she is, and she thinks of love while he is just waiting and hating all the more. He can't help it. There is so much hate inside perhaps because of his upbringing. But he falls this time, not her, and he is on skinned knees because he is hurt.
Now they share the pain of loving each other at this point. He realizes that he loves her, and she loves him. He can give of himself now. "Now there's time to give it all..." He put his fears behind him again (fears of being rejected, fears of not being loved, that CORE in which he must've hurt). They both will crawl with skinned knees but together.
So it's definitely a love song about hurting those we love and those we love hurting us.
It's not about addiction so much. Maybe people focus too much on Layne's songs as being those of an addict. I can say from personal experience that there are reasons why people use to begin with, and this is the deeper question. Layne must have felt so much pain in his life, but Demri was his bright spot in so many ways I'm sure. "Love, Hate, Love" had to do with his love for Demri similarly. He says this live by alluding that to a special little girl (Demri was short.).
Layne was SO honest in his songs. Is there anyone like that these days?
musicbank - you hit the nail on the head here I think..This song is not about drugs at all. The "disease" is the disease of love and hate, and I agree this song somehow coincides with "Love, Hate, Love.." It's the circle of true love. Possibly there was a relationship that was fantastic in the beginning, two people separate, the "confusion" then begins.. Hopefully there is a ending for this though in true happiness!
I undertand this song as a relationship between a couple in which he is an adict and how it hurt her.
It is a summary about their relationship: "I want to set you free, recognize my disease - (he's a junkie) Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering You're there crying, I feel not a thing"
When she tries to help him, she won't get it, because he is lying her and getting high again: "Drilling my way deeper in your head Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead"
She loves him too much and they are incompatable but relentless in effort.
This is the only thing that makes sense without being drug related.
Must not forget the reason why she(?) is hurting!
"I want to set you free, recognize my disease"
and
"Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead"
The one talking is Layne (or someone adicted to drugs), he's ill... There's no turning back! The second line I mention symbolize stairs down into an endless hole of drug abuse... He's trying to say there's no point in loving him... He won't be able to give much back in return...
Listen carefully to the song. You can hear ocean waves crashing in some parts of it.
Really good track.....good call on the crashing waves and Mike Starr's background vocals.
My interpretation of the lyrics is that the narrator has some sort of sexual fling with someone, but this other person wants more because he/she is in love (and the narrarator is not). I think this is demonstrated sufficiently in lyrics like "You reach, I run, you fall" and "You're there crying, I feel not a thing."
I love how the words "Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering" are spoken together in the chorus. It conveys how these acts/emotions are all tied together and how they are not mutually exclusive.
It is a case of not knowing what you have until it is gone. The person is reaching out for you, but you can't even make time for them. When they contemplate the true meaning of love and see that what they give is not given in return and move on, you become the one reaching out to them for time that is no longer there. Not all of their songs are about drugs. "Sinkng, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead" is representative of suicide in the form of slitting your wrists in a bath tub.
I understand that a majority of Laynes writing involved/included his addiction . I haven't listened to facelift in years. That being said, when I listened to confused tonight the wailing emotions of this song almost gives the point of view of a serial killer like Ted Bundy moments before the kill, not feeling anything while carrying out the act of murder.
love, sex pain confusion suffering. She's crying, he doesn't feel, not a thing... I know that it's about drugs and putting another person through that hell, however I just wanted to give my initial take on this song after so many years of not hearing it.