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"
Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snapping at my heels
I broke through the trees and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran 'til I fell shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined, the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed and to that house, I did ride
From out on the road I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore"
My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snapping at my heels
I broke through the trees and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran 'til I fell shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined, the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed and to that house, I did ride
From out on the road I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry son but no one by that name lives here anymore"
My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
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The Night We Met
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Yo La Tengo
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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,
I Can't Go To Sleep
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Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Springsteen has explained the meaning of this song on a few occasions.
For many years he had been driving at night to his childhood house with no apparent reason until one day he began wondering why. He then went to a psychiatrist who explained him that this 'ritual' was nothing but an attempt to make his past right and more specifically to correct something that went wrong during his childhood. Springsteen has mentioned a few time his difficult relationship with his father, a severe and depressed man, but also a very important figure for him. This song really talks about him freeing himself from this 'ritual' and coming to realize he is not going to be able to change his past anyway. It is of course also an homage to his dad and how important he was to him.
Yes, he had an incredibly tumultous relationship with his Dad and has often said that if he hadn't, he "wouldn't have had anything to write about". They reconciled yrs before he died. Bruce realizes now, as a father, that his Dad battled him/rode him so hard about choosing music because it wasn't a secure future and he, himself, failed at everything and his wife supported them. If you doubt the meaning and think it has religious overtones, watch it live/acoustic on youtube. Bruce rejected his CAtholicism early on, but some of his work has religious overtones. Jesus Was an Only Son came about when his first son EVAN, was born, and he realized how excruciating it was for Mary to watch Jesus. He doesn't go much further than that, though.
mmmm. talk to your father. dont let awkwardness get in the way, cos someday the chance wont be there.
i always thought that my father might actually be a God reference... the language of sin and the devil, and the house... all really evoke a biblical toil
@myfriendbrenn I agree. For me this song is about loss of Faith. It reminds me of Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach," and James Joyce's short story "Araby" from Dubliners.
i always thought that my father might actually be a God reference... the language of sin and the devil, and the house... all really evoke a biblical toil
I was thinking that it might be about not just reaching out to your father but to everyone in your life that you care about because they won't allways be there and i agree with "myfriendbrenn" in the sense that i think it may also be about sin in general and have a wider meaning: "Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned"-it's not just that sin but many un-atoned sins that are allways haunting him and he knows that he can no longer make them right
I definitely get the impression that the Father is really God, and that this house is really a church. The idea of the church shining "hard and bright," and "calling like a beacon of light" makes me think of the idea that a church as a beacon of light. Which ever way you look at this song, it's a great one. Definitely a shining point on one of Bruce's most emotional albums.
If you haven't seen this cover by Ben Harper, it's definitely worth checking out:
youtube.com/watch
I'd agree that the Father is actually God, and that the narrator feels lost and hopelessly estranged from Him ("No one by that name lives here anymore"). It's interesting that this song is followed on the album by "Reason to Believe," which is peopled by characters who maintain faith even in the depths of grief and loss.
One of Springsteen's greatest songs, in my opinion.
Irrelevant whether or not the "father" is question is God -- the theme of broken families certainly looms large in Springsteen's other songs, as do issues of faith, and both are contained here. The other recurring theme is the narrator's feeling of being helpless and lost.
Fabulous last line!
I guess the song works whether its about God or his father. Your parents will in many ways always have a Godlike quality to you. If they where/are good, bad or just never there; they still have/had a huge impact on your life. They are also the reason you're here today. I feel that the song is about loosing someone close to you, and realising that that person, and the times you had together will never come back. All that remains are memories, both the good and the bad.