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"
We lease twenty acres and one Ginny mule
From the Alabama trust
For half of the cotton and a third of the corn
We get a handful of dust
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
I had a daughter called her Annabelle
She's the apple of my eye
Tried to give her something like I never had
Didn't want to ever hear her cry
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
When I'm dead and buried I'll take a hard life of tears
From every day I've ever known
Anna's in the churchyard she got no life at all
She's only got these words on a stone
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
From the Alabama trust
For half of the cotton and a third of the corn
We get a handful of dust
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
I had a daughter called her Annabelle
She's the apple of my eye
Tried to give her something like I never had
Didn't want to ever hear her cry
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
When I'm dead and buried I'll take a hard life of tears
From every day I've ever known
Anna's in the churchyard she got no life at all
She's only got these words on a stone
We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why
Lyrics submitted by smallwonderrobot
Annabelle Lyrics as written by Gillian Howard Welch
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Life is full of suffering, especially for a sharecropper who is the voice we hear in this song. Bad things happen. Children die. The crop fails. Life is hard.
The only consolation is to have faith in the afterlife. Why is life so full of suffering? His answer is that he doesn't know. Maybe it's just the way the world is. The world isn't here to please us. It's all a mystery.
When we've all gone to Jesus, then he'll tell us what it all means. There be an answer in the sweet bye-and-bye.
One of my favorite lyrics off all time is this chorus...
"We cannot have all things that please us, no matter how we try. Until we've all gone to Jesus, we can only wonder why."
So amazingly honest and real.
The versus revolve around the chorus, telling the story of a struggling 19th century sharecropper who loses the only thing that really matters to her, her daughter Annabelle. There's nothing that can really explain why bad things happen in life so you just need to keep going on with your life and not worry why they happen. You'll get everything you want/need in the afterlife.
Terribly sad song, but beautiful as well.
Absolute bull sheet cop-out to pie in the sky pablum.
What a song ! So much pain, beautifully crafted, full off compassion and faith. The hardest test by God that ever was, losing your child. Even as a childless woman I can feel this pain through this song.