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"
Well, the summer day make a white man lazy
Well, all I've ever known is poor
Owe my skin to the country store
Throw my walls, my roof, my door
But he tells me I'm free
But I fight the will to live
Hell might take but heaven gives
It's the only one so I'll forgive
And Im not the one to grieve
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
I gotta work to feed my wife and baby
I work so god damn hard that it's a crime
Well, I went down to the polling place
The white men there just laughed in my face
Saying boy, this ain't no nigger's race
You best get on your way
Sir, I believe I've got the right
Said you ain't got nothing if you ain't white
And I thought I said get out of site
Well, what was I to say?
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
I gotta work to feed my wife and baby
I work so god damn hard that it's a crime
When I was 'bout the age of five
Watched my daddy burned alive
They cut him low and they hung him high
Swayin' in the breeze
The last words I heard him say
Before they stole his life that day
Was forgive them lord, they gone astray
Now take me to my knees
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy
Might make me do something out of line
Well, I don't know but I heard tell
Of a fungus below a place called hell
And who would catch me if I fell?
Who would pray for me?
But one thing I see for sure
It's hot as hell up here I know
And the devil lives right down the road
It's all the same to me
And a summer day make a white man feel lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy
Might make me do something out of line
But if you should see my wife
Tell her that I won't be home tonight
So don't leave on the light
I got a little buisness down the road
And If I'm dead by sunrise
Kiss my baby girl for me
It ain't life if it ain't free
I've got a mighty burden to unload
Well, all I've ever known is poor
Owe my skin to the country store
Throw my walls, my roof, my door
But he tells me I'm free
But I fight the will to live
Hell might take but heaven gives
It's the only one so I'll forgive
And Im not the one to grieve
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
I gotta work to feed my wife and baby
I work so god damn hard that it's a crime
Well, I went down to the polling place
The white men there just laughed in my face
Saying boy, this ain't no nigger's race
You best get on your way
Sir, I believe I've got the right
Said you ain't got nothing if you ain't white
And I thought I said get out of site
Well, what was I to say?
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
I gotta work to feed my wife and baby
I work so god damn hard that it's a crime
When I was 'bout the age of five
Watched my daddy burned alive
They cut him low and they hung him high
Swayin' in the breeze
The last words I heard him say
Before they stole his life that day
Was forgive them lord, they gone astray
Now take me to my knees
And the summer day make a white man lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy
Might make me do something out of line
Well, I don't know but I heard tell
Of a fungus below a place called hell
And who would catch me if I fell?
Who would pray for me?
But one thing I see for sure
It's hot as hell up here I know
And the devil lives right down the road
It's all the same to me
And a summer day make a white man feel lazy
He sits on his porch killing time
But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy
Might make me do something out of line
But if you should see my wife
Tell her that I won't be home tonight
So don't leave on the light
I got a little buisness down the road
And If I'm dead by sunrise
Kiss my baby girl for me
It ain't life if it ain't free
I've got a mighty burden to unload
Lyrics submitted by SphagnumEsplanade, edited by mazzer323
Long Summer Day Lyrics as written by Vogel Stephens
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Okay, to add on...I see many people critizing this song...Not on here, but on the internet in general because they use the the N word. Ive read countless books with use that word in school. I think one of them was "Of mine and men" but im not positive. Also, the Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" says something along the lines of "there was no doubt he pulled the triggger....he was just a crazy nigger". I cant remember word by word, but yeah you get the point. Two gallants, used this word, to obviously bring up the emotional content that comes with it. It is very important in this song because IT IS ABOUT Americas past. Like the Two Gallants said, wheres the book on songwriting? They can write about whatever they hell they want to write about. Maybe if all the critics were black and it brought great offense to the black community, then maybe, just maybe, I could see a problem.