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 was a poor little kid in the lungs of new York
Just like a motherless son of a bitch
Loaded on ephedrine looking for downers and coke
Like a sun that just wouldn't set out on the horizon
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I took a train and came up from Carolina
I was looking for something to do
Nothing I found could ever quite occupy me
With nothing to gain there's always nothing to lose
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
I should've died a hundred thousand times
Teetering stoned off the side of buildings
Nobody loved me and nobody even tried
You cant hang on to something that wont stop moving
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I got arrested down south for hitting a clerk
I spit in his face, the bastard knocked me out
He leered at my lady and then he touched her face
Thank God she had the money to bail me out
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
Bar room boogie just like in the movies
Go on put it to me shake it till the rattles come on
Take me where the morning don't come
I had a dog named Jet, when I was a kid
Until one day he wandered off and died
One night I went in the yard and dug him up
And he laid in the box just like a pile of bones
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I used to get loaded and baby Id drive your car
It seemed like there was always a cop
Coming behind me and following close as they could
Eventually they'd just trail off
Loaded and cruising to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
Bar room boogie just like in the movies
Go on put it to me shake it till the rattles come on
Take me where the morning don't come
I think I died a hundred thousand times
Mixing liquor with mystery pills
Mystery pills and heroin mixed into cocaine
Face down out on the riverside
Most of my friends are married and making them babies
To most of them I already died
And whatever it is about you I've always hated
Is something about myself I just couldn't hide
And I'm going going baby I'm gone
So cry me a river to the other side of the morning
To where the morning don't come
To where the morning don't come
To where the morning don't come
Just like a motherless son of a bitch
Loaded on ephedrine looking for downers and coke
Like a sun that just wouldn't set out on the horizon
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I took a train and came up from Carolina
I was looking for something to do
Nothing I found could ever quite occupy me
With nothing to gain there's always nothing to lose
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
I should've died a hundred thousand times
Teetering stoned off the side of buildings
Nobody loved me and nobody even tried
You cant hang on to something that wont stop moving
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I got arrested down south for hitting a clerk
I spit in his face, the bastard knocked me out
He leered at my lady and then he touched her face
Thank God she had the money to bail me out
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
Bar room boogie just like in the movies
Go on put it to me shake it till the rattles come on
Take me where the morning don't come
I had a dog named Jet, when I was a kid
Until one day he wandered off and died
One night I went in the yard and dug him up
And he laid in the box just like a pile of bones
Singing and dancing to them nighttime songs
I used to get loaded and baby Id drive your car
It seemed like there was always a cop
Coming behind me and following close as they could
Eventually they'd just trail off
Loaded and cruising to them nighttime songs
Cry me a river till the morning comes
Bar room boogie just like in the movies
Go on put it to me shake it till the rattles come on
Take me where the morning don't come
I think I died a hundred thousand times
Mixing liquor with mystery pills
Mystery pills and heroin mixed into cocaine
Face down out on the riverside
Most of my friends are married and making them babies
To most of them I already died
And whatever it is about you I've always hated
Is something about myself I just couldn't hide
And I'm going going baby I'm gone
So cry me a river to the other side of the morning
To where the morning don't come
To where the morning don't come
To where the morning don't come
Lyrics submitted by BlueAndStarry
29 Lyrics as written by Ryan Adams
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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First off, let me say that I am a huge Ryan Adams fan, but this is a huge ripoff of the Grateful Dead's "Truckin".
I remember reading that he was listening to a lot of GD while he was recording Cold Roses and this must have been the result of it. Great lyrics and awesome imagery though.