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"
Until she herself
Became the deadliest poison
As she grew older
Ooh, until she herself
Became just as fatal
As was her garden
And so you run towards
What you know is wrong
There are too many flowers to cut down
For the love I have for your life
For the love I have for your life
Turn around
Never did I mean to (never did I mean to)
Imprison you (imprison you)
Here in my garden (here in my garden)
Like I am imprisoned (like I am imprisoned)
For the love I have for your life (for the love I have for your life)
All the love I could have for your life (all the love I have for your life)
Turn around (turn around)
Until she herself
Understood her garden
Leaving her heart broken
No future at all
Until she herself
Became a toxic garden
Always frightened
No future at all
And so you run towards
What you know is wrong
There are too many flowers to cut down
For the love I have for your life
With all the love I could have for your life
Turn around
Never did I mean to (never did I mean to)
Imprison you (imprison you)
Here in my garden (here in my garden)
Like I am imprisoned (like I am imprisoned)
For the love I have for your life (for the love I have for your life)
All the love I could have for your life (all the love I have for your life)
Turn around (turn around)
So you run towards
What you know is wrong
But there are too many flowers to cut down
For all the love I have for your life
For the love I have for your life
Turn around
Running through the garden (running through the garden)
I'm running in brilliant colors (brilliant colors)
I'm running straight toward, straight towards (straight towards)
What you know is really wrong (really wrong)
Too many flowers here to cut down (too many flowers)
For the love I have for your life
Turn around (turn around)
For the love I have (for the love I have)
For the love I have (for the love I have)
For all the love I have (for all the love I have)
Turn around (turn around)
Became the deadliest poison
As she grew older
Ooh, until she herself
Became just as fatal
As was her garden
And so you run towards
What you know is wrong
There are too many flowers to cut down
For the love I have for your life
For the love I have for your life
Turn around
Never did I mean to (never did I mean to)
Imprison you (imprison you)
Here in my garden (here in my garden)
Like I am imprisoned (like I am imprisoned)
For the love I have for your life (for the love I have for your life)
All the love I could have for your life (all the love I have for your life)
Turn around (turn around)
Until she herself
Understood her garden
Leaving her heart broken
No future at all
Until she herself
Became a toxic garden
Always frightened
No future at all
And so you run towards
What you know is wrong
There are too many flowers to cut down
For the love I have for your life
With all the love I could have for your life
Turn around
Never did I mean to (never did I mean to)
Imprison you (imprison you)
Here in my garden (here in my garden)
Like I am imprisoned (like I am imprisoned)
For the love I have for your life (for the love I have for your life)
All the love I could have for your life (all the love I have for your life)
Turn around (turn around)
So you run towards
What you know is wrong
But there are too many flowers to cut down
For all the love I have for your life
For the love I have for your life
Turn around
Running through the garden (running through the garden)
I'm running in brilliant colors (brilliant colors)
I'm running straight toward, straight towards (straight towards)
What you know is really wrong (really wrong)
Too many flowers here to cut down (too many flowers)
For the love I have for your life
Turn around (turn around)
For the love I have (for the love I have)
For the love I have (for the love I have)
For all the love I have (for all the love I have)
Turn around (turn around)
Lyrics submitted by Concertina
Running Through the Garden Lyrics as written by Ray Kennedy Gary Nicholson
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song reminds me very much of a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story I studied in a college English class back in 2000. Stevie might have got the inspiration for this song from this story. In the story, a young man named Giovanni moves to a new neighborhood where he notices an alluring woman hanging out in the courtyard garden by his house. He talks with her and hangs out with her in the garden, but she literally becomes poisonous to him. She knows that she poisons everybody she meets and avoids people, but he won't listen or heed the advice of her or her father.
I wonder if Stevie did get the inspiration for the song from the same place.