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"
Man, I never slept so hard
I never dreamt so well
Dreaming, I was safe in life
Like mussels in a shells
Rolling and controlling all the basements and the backroads of our lives
Fill their dreams with big fast cars
Fill their heads with sand
Holy white we'll paint the town
The color of our flag
Hey there little lady has your baby got the look of some old man ?
Standing on the corner of the third world
Hungry men will close their minds
Ideas are not their food
Notions fall on stony ground
Where passions are subdued
Color all the madness for the madness is the thorn that's in our side
Standing on the corner of the third world
When we gonna learn?
Who we gonna turn to?
The promises they make
The call for attention
Compassion is the fashion
Free to earn, our pockets burn
We buy for love
Die for love
Hold me I'm crying
Hold me I'm dying
I never dreamt so well
Dreaming, I was safe in life
Like mussels in a shells
Rolling and controlling all the basements and the backroads of our lives
Fill their dreams with big fast cars
Fill their heads with sand
Holy white we'll paint the town
The color of our flag
Hey there little lady has your baby got the look of some old man ?
Standing on the corner of the third world
Hungry men will close their minds
Ideas are not their food
Notions fall on stony ground
Where passions are subdued
Color all the madness for the madness is the thorn that's in our side
Standing on the corner of the third world
When we gonna learn?
Who we gonna turn to?
The promises they make
The call for attention
Compassion is the fashion
Free to earn, our pockets burn
We buy for love
Die for love
Hold me I'm crying
Hold me I'm dying
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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."
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
This is such a great song! To me, it seems to be getting across about someone who had been ahead in life, but has recently and slowly been delving into the third world. Of course nothing is mentioned about how this person has ended up in the third world country, but the reason I think this is because the writer sometimes references the others in the country as "them" and sometimes as "us" or "we", acknowledging that they are one with the people of the third world country, yet sometimes separating themselves from them. When the lyrics are "Dreaming I was safe in life" could possibly be the person thinking back to when they were in a secure living situation. I find the lyric "Hungry men will close their minds/Ideas are not their food/Notions fall on stony ground/Where passions are subdued" interesting. Personally I see these lines as comparing first world countries to third world countries. People in first world countries will think up any silly idea that others are willing to buy if it can make them a buck. They keep their minds open to things that could be ideas. In the end, their ideas are virtually what is putting food on the table for them, giving them an opportunity to live a little since they have a chance to do so. However, in this third world country, food is food. They aren't thinking up some scheme to make money, they are working for the necessities, for example, food, water, shelter, etc. I think in the end the writer knows their fate which is, he is dying. He cannot survive in the conditions and knows it is a very real possibility that he could die at anytime, later, tomorrow, a week from today, etc.
Such a wonderful song. Really makes one stop to think about their life from where they stand. I love the intensity of the music at the end. It almost seems as if the narrator in the song is dying right then. Just superb! Fantastic as always Roland!