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 saw the railway master and I looked him in the eye
I said, "Would you go much faster if you thought that you would die?"
He said, "Not me sir, I could not care, in fact, I would not try.
For protest would not take me far.
It's different, me not being a star."
I lock my feelings in a jar until another day
Oh, comfort me, dear brother, won't you tell me what you know?
For somewhere in this paper world is a place where I can go
Oh, long awaiting mother, is it time to make a show?
And take your babies to your breast
No, we never passed the test
And all our sins should be confessed before we carry on
Oh, don't refuse me
If you choose me, you'll follow my shame
No, don't confuse me
For I know it's the name of the game
I got up off my pillow and I looked up at the sun
I said, "You can see quite clearly, now, the things that we have done
We burned your sacred willow and our battles we have won.
But did we get so very far?
It's different, me not being a star."
I lock my feelings in a jar until we go away
I said, "Would you go much faster if you thought that you would die?"
He said, "Not me sir, I could not care, in fact, I would not try.
For protest would not take me far.
It's different, me not being a star."
I lock my feelings in a jar until another day
Oh, comfort me, dear brother, won't you tell me what you know?
For somewhere in this paper world is a place where I can go
Oh, long awaiting mother, is it time to make a show?
And take your babies to your breast
No, we never passed the test
And all our sins should be confessed before we carry on
Oh, don't refuse me
If you choose me, you'll follow my shame
No, don't confuse me
For I know it's the name of the game
I got up off my pillow and I looked up at the sun
I said, "You can see quite clearly, now, the things that we have done
We burned your sacred willow and our battles we have won.
But did we get so very far?
It's different, me not being a star."
I lock my feelings in a jar until we go away
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Too bad Pete Hamm isn't around to explain this one. I believe it describes Pete's problems with how his manager and record company were handling the financial affairs of the group. These guys worked themselves to death and recived next to no financial compensation. When they attempted to get these issues worked out they were essentially advised to live with it. So, as he looks around and sees all other music personalities doing well from his perception he realizes that he will be treated differently because he is a 'star'. So, once again they work and work and were actually getting quite the following in the early 70s on both sides of the ocean. Yet, they continued to not reap financial rewards. They also had disputes about how their product should be handled and ended up finding that they weren't going to get any say-so there either. The final straw came when their last actual group record was ready for distribution and it was found that their escrow account had somehow lost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Then the brakes caused the distribution of this record to a grinding halt until this could be resolved. As far as I know - it never was. The record never came out and in a fit of total depression Pete ended his life. (Of course there is the conspiracy that Pete actaully went to present an ultimatum to his manager who apparently had organized crime ties - and because they didn't like what Pete had to say decide that they had made plenty of money off of him already and helped him die.)