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 will lead a wallpaper life
Or run away to the foreign legion
I will lead a wallpaper life
Or run away to the foreign legion
And as the tanks roll into town
As the tanks roll into town
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
As the tanks roll into town
As the tanks roll into town
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied
I don't know why I feel so skinned alive
Run until your lungs are sore
Until you cannot feel it any more
Run until your lungs are sore
Until you find an open door
I build you up to pull you down
Tie you to your feet, and watch you drown
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
I build you up to pull you down
Tie you to the stake and watch you burn in hell
I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied
I don't know why I feel so skinned alive
I'll find another skin to wear
I'll find another skin to wear
Or run away to the foreign legion
I will lead a wallpaper life
Or run away to the foreign legion
And as the tanks roll into town
As the tanks roll into town
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
As the tanks roll into town
As the tanks roll into town
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied
I don't know why I feel so skinned alive
Run until your lungs are sore
Until you cannot feel it any more
Run until your lungs are sore
Until you find an open door
I build you up to pull you down
Tie you to your feet, and watch you drown
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you
I build you up to pull you down
Tie you to the stake and watch you burn in hell
I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied
I don't know why I feel so skinned alive
I'll find another skin to wear
I'll find another skin to wear
Lyrics submitted by shut, edited by smallwonderrobot
Cuttooth Lyrics as written by Edward John O'brien Colin Charles Greenwood
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"'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."
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Great version of a great song,
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This is my favorite song. I've listened to it several times every day for over a year, sometimes listening to it for hours at a time. I've even written a short story inspired by it. I doubt that my interpretation was intended by Radiohead, but it seems to make sense. Here we go.
"I will lead a wallpaper life" I will spend my life trapped by walls, doing nothing of significance.
"Or run away to the foreign legion" Or I could go on an adventure to keep from wasting my life.
"As the tanks roll into town " He chose to go on an adventure by joining a military, which involved him and others in tanks wreaking havoc on a town.
"A little bit of knowledge will destroy you" The knowledge that he's destroying people's lives will destroy him.
"I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied I don't know why I feel so skinned alive" He sees the misery he's spreading, and this knowledge is destroying him with guilt. Intellectually, though, he doesn't know why he feels guilt because he's been trained to not value his victims' lives.
"Run until your lungs are sore Until you cannot feel it any more" Keep running to a new adventure until you can't feel your guilt anymore.
"Run until your lungs are sore Until you find an open door" Keep running to a new adventure until you find a way out of your misery.
"I build you up to pull you down" I build an enemy up in my head to turn them into evil subhumans so I can torture them and feel like a hero.
"Tie you to your feet, and watch you drown" "Tie you to the stake and watch you burn in hell" He tortures people he's deemed as evil subhumans in order to feel like a hero.
"I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied I don't know why I feel so skinned alive" Even after only harming people he believes deserve to be harmed, he still feels immense guilt.
"I'll find another skin to wear I'll find another skin to wear" I'll see things from inside someone else's skin. Seeing life from another person's perspective gives him empathy. This understand of why people do the things they do teaches him to forgive people who've done horrible things, including himself. So the line, "A little bit of knowledge will destroys you" also refers to the knowledge that other people's well-being is as valuable as his own will destroy "you", meaning his ego. By finding "another skin to wear" he has gained the empathy required to be a compassionate person.