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'm writing reports of the days and the nights.
locked up for years in a measure of mind.
when with a net of nothing.
i was trying to catch the motions of a mind.
and the methods of a crime. i never saw the chance.
and never what i held in my hands.
the lights are all red in this town.
where i'm killed by exhausts.
and alcohols that dry out my skin.
i never had a clue of the role that i played.
but that's the condition and the price that we pay
locked up for years in a measure of mind.
when with a net of nothing.
i was trying to catch the motions of a mind.
and the methods of a crime. i never saw the chance.
and never what i held in my hands.
the lights are all red in this town.
where i'm killed by exhausts.
and alcohols that dry out my skin.
i never had a clue of the role that i played.
but that's the condition and the price that we pay
Lyrics submitted by jimpster
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he (the singer) likes to write out how he feels in a journal, as songs, poems, or whatever (writing reports of the days and the nights). his mental state (depressed most likely, perhaps manic depression since his songs are so good) has locked him up for years. he tried to understand himself by sitting at home alone, in the dark, listening to music and writing (with a net of nothing (alone, introspection only)) he was trying to figure out who he was (motions of a mind).
he totally missed everything and everyone that was good in his life while he was like this (never saw the chance, never what i held in my hands).
he looks out over his modern life (which has allowed him to reach this state--no need to get up with the sun, no need to hardly move at all for days at a time), he sees everything is dead (all lights are red, nobody going anywhere). of course, the modern world kills him (killed by exhausts) and its features that allow him to stand it also kill him (alcohols, which likely are being abused here, dry out his skin). drying out of the skin also, likely, refers to the fact that the alcohol makes him something other than what he really is (sucks out his life) and turns him into someone else entirely. it's not his fault, he argues (that's the condition and the price that we pay for living when and how we do now). he also knows that his mental depression is his to get over, if he chooses to do so (i never had a clue of the role that i played).