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"
Merge, a vessel, a harbour
A perfect union
Of gift and reception
Each an eye
On the same face
Loss and gain
Fly into the mouth of the ground
Six feet under
Thanks to some failure
Fly into the mouth of the ground
Six feet under
One for the night
One for the dark
Taste each other
For a moment, then goodbye
Hold her eyes
Share the same air
Oh lay it down
Oh lay it bare
I'm speechless
Naked as a fiery sunset
You turn, not fleeting
Destroyed not complete
A perfect cacophony
Rising like vapour
Solid and liquid
Awkward and trapping
Stolen but paid for
Legs and knees and ankles and toes
When it burns an old enemy flows
Legs and knees and ankles and toes
When it burns an old enemy flows
Gathered and strewn
From this altitude
To some other moon
Wearing false armour
And useless shields
Failed to exist
Crying out and into the streets
They are always prepared for the cries
Prepared for the worst
Crying out loud at the untold
They are transfixed but not transformed
Stop accommodating echoes
Into these hard-pressed streets
Into these well-travelled streets
Into these hard-pressed streets
A perfect union
Of gift and reception
Each an eye
On the same face
Loss and gain
Fly into the mouth of the ground
Six feet under
Thanks to some failure
Fly into the mouth of the ground
Six feet under
One for the night
One for the dark
Taste each other
For a moment, then goodbye
Hold her eyes
Share the same air
Oh lay it down
Oh lay it bare
I'm speechless
Naked as a fiery sunset
You turn, not fleeting
Destroyed not complete
A perfect cacophony
Rising like vapour
Solid and liquid
Awkward and trapping
Stolen but paid for
Legs and knees and ankles and toes
When it burns an old enemy flows
Legs and knees and ankles and toes
When it burns an old enemy flows
Gathered and strewn
From this altitude
To some other moon
Wearing false armour
And useless shields
Failed to exist
Crying out and into the streets
They are always prepared for the cries
Prepared for the worst
Crying out loud at the untold
They are transfixed but not transformed
Stop accommodating echoes
Into these hard-pressed streets
Into these well-travelled streets
Into these hard-pressed streets
Lyrics submitted by LMK, edited by LonelyHikr
Merge, a Vessel, a Harbour Lyrics as written by Anthony Dekker
Lyrics © Red Brick Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Beautiful song indeed. Don't know what I make of the song as whole, but there seems to be references to both life and death in the lyrics. Especially this part accounts for the death theme:
Gathered and strewn From this altitude To some other moon Wearing false armour And useless shields Failed to exist
It's described as if a body has been cremated and scattered (gathered and strewn) from a great height (from this altitude to some other moon) without any form of protection (wearing false armor and useless shields) to eventually disappear (failed to exist).
This part seems to account for the life part:
Loss and gain Fly into the mouth of the ground Six feet under Thanks to some failure Fly into the mouth of the ground Six feet under
.. describing the dawn of man perhaps. How we started living on the planet out of nothing by coincidence (fly into the mouth of the ground, six feet under, thanks to some failure)