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"
The sway and swell
Fill you with her motion
Red gold across my arms
The vicious strokes I painted
A river fills your heart
I'm sorry if I let you down
I know just how you feel tonight
This is never what you wanted
I've been searching for myself
In other people's eyes
The mirror is telling half-truths
These stolen words finally feel like mine
Swollen and sweating, off-time
I can see it in your eyes
An ocean floods my heart
I'm sorry that I let you down
You know just how I feel tonight
This is everything I wanted
You've been searching for yourself
In other people's eyes
The revisionist never gets it perfect
Never gets you perfect
The revisionist never gets it perfect
Never gets you perfect
The time is never ripe
The words are never right
The time is never ripe
The words are never right
Fill you with her motion
Red gold across my arms
The vicious strokes I painted
A river fills your heart
I'm sorry if I let you down
I know just how you feel tonight
This is never what you wanted
I've been searching for myself
In other people's eyes
The mirror is telling half-truths
These stolen words finally feel like mine
Swollen and sweating, off-time
I can see it in your eyes
An ocean floods my heart
I'm sorry that I let you down
You know just how I feel tonight
This is everything I wanted
You've been searching for yourself
In other people's eyes
The revisionist never gets it perfect
Never gets you perfect
The revisionist never gets it perfect
Never gets you perfect
The time is never ripe
The words are never right
The time is never ripe
The words are never right
Lyrics submitted by X405pastmidnight
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Great version of a great song,
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I agree with shoutout, this is about the journey for self identity. The revisionist in this song is trying to make things perfect like the images in his head of how things used to be, but can't, simply because the images in his head are just an obsessed and romanticized view of the past.
Very powerful subject matter. It doesn't get much better than this song.
this song gives me the shivers. its so good.
but like a lot of these songs, the meaning is pretty elusive. weird relationship between two people
Woah man, this song used to give me the shivers too..damn! I think I had a relationship like this before and that's why. The change from this is everythign ive wanted and this is never what u wanted is brilliant, best part of the song.
first off, every has to realize that the lawrence arms always has a little metaphor underneath everything. but i think this what it means.
it tells how this guy is feeling either really lonely or sad or both [cuz of a girl] and is sick of everything and cuts his wrists. and then the girl finds out and finally starts to care now and its too much for her at once. the verse "the mirror is tellin half truths..." its him looking into the mirror even he looks alright he really isnt. "these stolen words feel like mine" i think it comes from the old line 'I could die for you' and thats what happened. then he realizes that this was a big maistake and hits him at once and he starts apologizing to her. and he tells the girl how he knows what shes feeling. i dont qute get the line then "you've been searching for yourself in other people's eyes" i think maybe shes too scared too be herself and so she just acts like her friends. the finally bit i think is finally the guy goes to a counsler and no matter how much they try to help him he cant tell them how he feels.
a really deep song from the kings of chicago
i think the "searchin for myself/youself in other peoples eyes" has to do with the person dating other people.
the relationship is dragging on ..too much fighting and no progress..its just not working out but they still love eachother.. he is wondering what else is out there and wants more so he is looking for it..and she doesnt want that.
later on she realizes that the relationship is comming to an end so she does the same
sums it up in this quote:
"An ocean floods my heart I'm sorry that I let you down You know just how I feel tonight This is everything I wanted You've been searching for yourself In other people's eyes"
i think confusion89's name sums up his response... CONFUSED! I think you might have taken the words and kinda created your own little story out of it bro... which isn't a bad thing, that's what music and lyrics are all about, personalyzing them, but i just don't think that's what is being said here.
Contrastly, I thought this song was about a relationship where neither side really knew who they were, "I've/you've been searching for myself/yourself In other people's eyes," the journey for self-identity, and the fucked up relationship that formulates due to neither of them knowing who they are. It seems as though they are trying to change and reform themselves through one another "the revisionist," but can't ever make it work by venting through eachother, "never gets it perfect, never gets it perfect."
The lines: "The mirror is telling half-truths These stolen words finally feel like mine Swollen and sweating, off-time I can see it in your eyes"
Just further seems to prove that the whole relationship is forced "swollen and swetaing, off-time" and the dialect between the two is a product of not being comfortable with themselves and is almost the foreign words of a stranger or another person, "The mirror is telling half-truths, These stolen words finally feel like mine"
This song is just living proof that anyone who thinks brendon is the better vocalist of the two, not trying to take anything away from him (i love me some brendon :), is just fuckin crazy. Chris is a fuckin lyrical genius, and the way he gets his vocals to demonstrate his emotions is incomparable!
I gotta say, it sounds like confusion98 got it right lol.