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"
Please sit down, just talk to me
We'll see if we can talk this through
I've tried so hard to understand it
Just tell me something that's close to the truth
I'd rather you were cruel than kind
Is all that I'm demanding
I've given up on peace of mind
For the open wound of understanding
You can't be here and someplace else
If your mind is in that other place
You're trying to convince yourself
But you're lying in my face
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
The sand sits in the hourglass
Time slips through our fingers fast
Your counterfeits deceived me
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
Tell me how it came to this
Just don't think to spare me this
Perhaps the truth can set us free
From the half truths ensnaring you and me
This black hole of intensity
Collapses on its density
And sucks me to a darker place
That hides behind a broken face
Keep up appearances as they say
And all those reasons you might stay
Ring hollow in my mind today
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
I don't want half of anything
The fields are sown with seeds of doubt
The wine is warm, you spit it out
This drinking won't relieve me
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
The patterns in the distant stars
Our fates upon a loom
The changes in the temperature
When you walked into a room
The smell of your perfume
The taste of your skin
All those bitter reminders
Of the failed state I'm in
How do I breathe now, how do I inhale?
I'm a diver on the seabed, my oxygen's failed
How do I wake up, how do I sleep?
How do I laugh now, I can't even weep?
Where do I run to, where do I hide?
An insect preserved in formaldehyde
Yesterday's paper, its pages curled
How can I live in this broken world?
Keep up appearances as they say
But all those reasons you might stay
Ring hollow in my mind today
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
I don't want half of anything
The sand, it falls in the hour glass
And time slips through our fingers fast
And nothing that you say relieves me
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
We'll see if we can talk this through
I've tried so hard to understand it
Just tell me something that's close to the truth
I'd rather you were cruel than kind
Is all that I'm demanding
I've given up on peace of mind
For the open wound of understanding
You can't be here and someplace else
If your mind is in that other place
You're trying to convince yourself
But you're lying in my face
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
The sand sits in the hourglass
Time slips through our fingers fast
Your counterfeits deceived me
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
Tell me how it came to this
Just don't think to spare me this
Perhaps the truth can set us free
From the half truths ensnaring you and me
This black hole of intensity
Collapses on its density
And sucks me to a darker place
That hides behind a broken face
Keep up appearances as they say
And all those reasons you might stay
Ring hollow in my mind today
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
I don't want half of anything
The fields are sown with seeds of doubt
The wine is warm, you spit it out
This drinking won't relieve me
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
The patterns in the distant stars
Our fates upon a loom
The changes in the temperature
When you walked into a room
The smell of your perfume
The taste of your skin
All those bitter reminders
Of the failed state I'm in
How do I breathe now, how do I inhale?
I'm a diver on the seabed, my oxygen's failed
How do I wake up, how do I sleep?
How do I laugh now, I can't even weep?
Where do I run to, where do I hide?
An insect preserved in formaldehyde
Yesterday's paper, its pages curled
How can I live in this broken world?
Keep up appearances as they say
But all those reasons you might stay
Ring hollow in my mind today
I've listened 'til my head would spin
I don't want half of anything
I don't want half of anything
The sand, it falls in the hour glass
And time slips through our fingers fast
And nothing that you say relieves me
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
If you can't love me this way
Then you must leave me
Lyrics submitted by sillybunny
If You Can't Love Me Lyrics as written by Dominic Miller Gordon Sumner
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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