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"
Stop the bus
I want to be lonely
When seconds pass slowly
And years go flying by
You gotta stop the bus
I'll get off here
Enough's enough
I'm leaving this factory
All she wants
Is food on the table
I won't be able
To bring it home
All she wants, come on,
All I need is free
Cause I'm a factory
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Millionaires and mill rats live side by side here,
Messed up my brother's mind
He's far from earth
What's he worth
The same as you the same as me
In this factory
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
(Whoa)(Come on)(Whoa)(Whoa)
(That's pretty good, try it again)
(Whoa)
It's 4 in the morning
Mother don't know
That I'm going far away
She's whispering to the moon
I hope he don't join you soon
Baby boss
Climbs up on his soapbox
But Great Caesar's ghost
Knows what's best for me
He says stop the bus
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
I want to be lonely
When seconds pass slowly
And years go flying by
You gotta stop the bus
I'll get off here
Enough's enough
I'm leaving this factory
All she wants
Is food on the table
I won't be able
To bring it home
All she wants, come on,
All I need is free
Cause I'm a factory
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Millionaires and mill rats live side by side here,
Messed up my brother's mind
He's far from earth
What's he worth
The same as you the same as me
In this factory
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
(Whoa)(Come on)(Whoa)(Whoa)
(That's pretty good, try it again)
(Whoa)
It's 4 in the morning
Mother don't know
That I'm going far away
She's whispering to the moon
I hope he don't join you soon
Baby boss
Climbs up on his soapbox
But Great Caesar's ghost
Knows what's best for me
He says stop the bus
Did Mother Nature tell you
Boy you come and go as you please
That's what she said to me
But Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
Big brother got the keys
And I got Jackson Cannery
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The Night We Met
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Great version of a great song,
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Reminds me of the phrase "you are what you eat" especially when he says "cause I'm a factory." You work in a factory, therefore the factory becomes your life. This song could easily be about any job that people stay in despite the fact that they hate it and what they've become as a result of it. So screw the job, take the bus to California and get a job as a pizza delivery boy. Better than working in a factory.