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"
I locked myself inside the capsule
And watched the planet slowly turning blue
The lights before me flashed and sparkled
Holding keys to lives I've wandred through
Circuits buzzing, visions passing
Mysterious and cold upon the screen
Glowing, flowing with the currents
Yet never knowing where I've really been
The floating seeds of timeless travel
Come to rest in planes that don't exist
Visiting worlds of crystal beauty
Offering dreams so very hard to resist
I've seen the past, I've seen the future
Beyond dimension and into empty space
Finding questions, never answers
Living time behind another face
And watched the planet slowly turning blue
The lights before me flashed and sparkled
Holding keys to lives I've wandred through
Circuits buzzing, visions passing
Mysterious and cold upon the screen
Glowing, flowing with the currents
Yet never knowing where I've really been
The floating seeds of timeless travel
Come to rest in planes that don't exist
Visiting worlds of crystal beauty
Offering dreams so very hard to resist
I've seen the past, I've seen the future
Beyond dimension and into empty space
Finding questions, never answers
Living time behind another face
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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."
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
I have no idea what the lyrics mean, beyond the obvious description of someone floating through space, but I find this is one of the best 'ambient' style songs PT have released. It has so much atmosphere! The sound is far more mature than the rest of the album, and shows clearly the direction PT were going musically.
the drowning planet and the space wanderer could be a metaphor for someone's life. the planet being slowly drowned could symbolize the destruction of everything they held dear. the capsule could be the only thing protecting them (drugs, alcohol are my thoughts). then the wandering is them trying to always find what it is they had before, but never finding it
Such a beautiful song. I agree with you Blacksheep.
Near Death Experience or reincarnation.
Another possibility is space travel- the "capsule" above the blue planet. Or drugs of course.
It sounds like it's someone fleeing the planet as it's flooding. He looks down at his home, and sees the land being enveloped in water (watched the planet slowly turning blue).
So now he travels the galaxy, holding within his mind the story of his faded planet, trying to find a home, seeing many planets along the way, but he never finds it, searching forever.
This is my favorite song from the band's early years. I just love the cryptic, spacey vibe of it. It's one of those songs where you can close your eyes and let it take you somewhere else.
IMO they really should have put it on Stars Die, because not too many people own On The Sunday of Life, and I think it's one of the most influential early songs on the band's sound. Anyway, great stuff.
I think this song is about television.
There's something absolutely amazing about this song. It is artistic in a very mystical sounding way. Each bang of bass in the background is like a crash of thunder, and each drum beat a pang of rain on the surface of the earth.
Primal, yet mystical, as the vocals ring through in a tone that expresses a sort of distant view of the earth. Space traveler asside, it seems like someone looking at the earth as a whole.
I believe the first bit of lyrics is from the point of view of someone looking at the world from a re-imagined perspective, having locked themselves inside the confounds of society, and realizing that they never really knew where they were in life.
Epiphany, even.
Or, and I usually hate to be one of these people, it could be about drugs. The second half sounds very LSD-y.