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"
Lost now is the innocence of childhood
With her failed manuscript and his failed everything
The urgency of reality seemed to set in
But they were part of the same disease
That they had infected each other with
They were contagious with passion
And their host was inspiration
And when they met they were sick with each other
And at their birthplace it was recalled to be said
That they would always be together
They would always always be together in mind, body, and faith
And a year passed in moments
A few short, sweet motions of hands drawings patterns of wings on each other's backs
It was their devotion that carried them to such great heights
Her pen was once again flowing
And his heart was again open
So in soft words he spoke "like a wax flower found in the forest we shall forever be unharmed by winter's touch"
"Yes, but we may melt at the wrath of the sun"
As the spoke of seasons, the seasons pressed onward
As he dwelt on what she meant
A few words became a sonnet
And the sonnet became a chronicle
And on an on until her masterpiece was complete
And in her play known as 'nouveau'
One man is irreparably helpless
When faced with the questions of the world
And somehow, every audiance could relate
And it grew out of her control
So in soft words she spoke
"When two angels are charged with the burden of surverying heaven, one angel must stay to play the harp, for music by which the other can test her wings but you see there's only so much heaven to cross so they must meet again; in this life or the next"
...in this life or the next
Through all days to come there is one image in his mind of a glowing white deity surrounded by a sea of dark
And he a small figure latched onto her arm
And some years later, he will lose his desperate grip with that effigy he clung to through his every hour
And he will float thereon in endless black
The body of her memory is the only light escaping into that night
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
And consequence, it comes down heavy
In this life or the next
And there's too much to regret before we die
As she was swarmed onto the train car
He saw her hand waving and her voice shouting
"You will take half of me with you!"
and he whispered back to her "girl, you've got all of me. Girl, you've got all of me"
With her failed manuscript and his failed everything
The urgency of reality seemed to set in
But they were part of the same disease
That they had infected each other with
They were contagious with passion
And their host was inspiration
And when they met they were sick with each other
And at their birthplace it was recalled to be said
That they would always be together
They would always always be together in mind, body, and faith
And a year passed in moments
A few short, sweet motions of hands drawings patterns of wings on each other's backs
It was their devotion that carried them to such great heights
Her pen was once again flowing
And his heart was again open
So in soft words he spoke "like a wax flower found in the forest we shall forever be unharmed by winter's touch"
"Yes, but we may melt at the wrath of the sun"
As the spoke of seasons, the seasons pressed onward
As he dwelt on what she meant
A few words became a sonnet
And the sonnet became a chronicle
And on an on until her masterpiece was complete
And in her play known as 'nouveau'
One man is irreparably helpless
When faced with the questions of the world
And somehow, every audiance could relate
And it grew out of her control
So in soft words she spoke
"When two angels are charged with the burden of surverying heaven, one angel must stay to play the harp, for music by which the other can test her wings but you see there's only so much heaven to cross so they must meet again; in this life or the next"
...in this life or the next
Through all days to come there is one image in his mind of a glowing white deity surrounded by a sea of dark
And he a small figure latched onto her arm
And some years later, he will lose his desperate grip with that effigy he clung to through his every hour
And he will float thereon in endless black
The body of her memory is the only light escaping into that night
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
...in this life or the next
And consequence, it comes down heavy
In this life or the next
And there's too much to regret before we die
As she was swarmed onto the train car
He saw her hand waving and her voice shouting
"You will take half of me with you!"
and he whispered back to her "girl, you've got all of me. Girl, you've got all of me"
Lyrics submitted by Inoue versus Date
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