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 land's opening up like a blanket,
and the dandelions spread themselves thickly out
along the fields, which are, evidently, endless;
and we are hotly in love with one another.
we've got an unquenchable thirst in our throats.
we are, for some reason, all the time, bleeding,
and we are friendless.
and we love these dogs that roll on the lawns here in galesburg --
because they seem to know something nobody else knows.
it is written in the smiles on their faces,
and it rings in their high young voices
we are burning up all of our choices up here
where the tall grass grows, up here in galesburg.
the sky's opening up like an old wound,
and the rain on our bodies is warm tonight
and the ground underneath us shakes in the cracking thunder.
we can taste fresh blood in our mouths again:
there is no chance of getting enough of it,
and we tally up all our possessions, we're going under.
but we love these dogs that loll in the rain here in galesburg
as the new season rocks them in its terrible arms.
yeah they howl as though the world were ending,
and we are watching the sky unwinding
and some of our promises were binding up here where our dreams take form
up here in galesburg.
and the dandelions spread themselves thickly out
along the fields, which are, evidently, endless;
and we are hotly in love with one another.
we've got an unquenchable thirst in our throats.
we are, for some reason, all the time, bleeding,
and we are friendless.
and we love these dogs that roll on the lawns here in galesburg --
because they seem to know something nobody else knows.
it is written in the smiles on their faces,
and it rings in their high young voices
we are burning up all of our choices up here
where the tall grass grows, up here in galesburg.
the sky's opening up like an old wound,
and the rain on our bodies is warm tonight
and the ground underneath us shakes in the cracking thunder.
we can taste fresh blood in our mouths again:
there is no chance of getting enough of it,
and we tally up all our possessions, we're going under.
but we love these dogs that loll in the rain here in galesburg
as the new season rocks them in its terrible arms.
yeah they howl as though the world were ending,
and we are watching the sky unwinding
and some of our promises were binding up here where our dreams take form
up here in galesburg.
Lyrics submitted by sailforsingapore
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I entirely disagree with tomStrangelove. It's about a couple abandoning everything for each other, who see themselves in the dogs that howl for joy in the new season's storms.
Some other thoughts:
There's a lot about springtime fertility in this song.
I think it should be taken closely with the previous song on the album, "Twin Human Highway Flares," which is about a young couple very much in love traveling from Iowa "into western Illinois."
I wonder if Galesburg was chosen because its name evokes storms, gales. Or perhaps the city's present unfortunate condition is a good backdrop to the couple and the dogs.
And how can you hear the line "and some of our promises were binding up here where our dreams take form" and not be incredibly envious?