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"
You can fake it for a while
Bite your tongue and smile
Like every mother does her ugly child
But it starts the leaking out
Like spittle from a cloud
Amassed resentment pelting ounce and pound
You entertaining any doubt
'Cause you had to know that I was fond of you
Fond of Y-O-U
Though I knew you masked your disdain
I can see the change was just too hard for us
Hard for us
You always had to hold the reigns
But where I'm headed, you just don't know the way
So affections fade away
Or do adults just learn to play
The most ridiculous, repulsive games?
All our favorite ruddy sons
And their double-barreled guns
You'd better hurry rabbit, run, run, run
'Cause mincing you is fun
And there's a lot of hungry hatters in this world
Set on taking it over
But brittle, thorny stems
They break before they bend
And neither one of us is one of them
And the tears will never mend
'Cause you had it in for me so long ago
Boy, I still don't know
I don't know why and I don't care
Well, hardly anymore
If you'd only seen yourself hating me
Hating me
When I've been so much more than fair
But then you'd have to lay those feelings bare
One thing I know has still got you scared
Yeah, all that cold ire
And never once aired on a dare
You had to know that I was fond of you
Fond of Y-O-U
So I took your licks at the time
And a change like that is just so hard to do
Hard to do
Don't let it whip-crack your life
And I'll bow out from the fight
Those old pious sisters were right
The worst part is over
Now get back on that horse and ride
Bite your tongue and smile
Like every mother does her ugly child
But it starts the leaking out
Like spittle from a cloud
Amassed resentment pelting ounce and pound
You entertaining any doubt
'Cause you had to know that I was fond of you
Fond of Y-O-U
Though I knew you masked your disdain
I can see the change was just too hard for us
Hard for us
You always had to hold the reigns
But where I'm headed, you just don't know the way
So affections fade away
Or do adults just learn to play
The most ridiculous, repulsive games?
All our favorite ruddy sons
And their double-barreled guns
You'd better hurry rabbit, run, run, run
'Cause mincing you is fun
And there's a lot of hungry hatters in this world
Set on taking it over
But brittle, thorny stems
They break before they bend
And neither one of us is one of them
And the tears will never mend
'Cause you had it in for me so long ago
Boy, I still don't know
I don't know why and I don't care
Well, hardly anymore
If you'd only seen yourself hating me
Hating me
When I've been so much more than fair
But then you'd have to lay those feelings bare
One thing I know has still got you scared
Yeah, all that cold ire
And never once aired on a dare
You had to know that I was fond of you
Fond of Y-O-U
So I took your licks at the time
And a change like that is just so hard to do
Hard to do
Don't let it whip-crack your life
And I'll bow out from the fight
Those old pious sisters were right
The worst part is over
Now get back on that horse and ride
Lyrics submitted by heyheyhey111, edited by AliceInWonder
Turn on Me Lyrics as written by James Russell Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This goes above and beyond the actual lyrics --it's just my take:
I hear it as being about two otherwise straight guys who briefly had a "more than friends" relationship during their youth at a Catholic boarding school. As adults, the other guy completely denies the relationship ever happened and has completely rejected the narrator as a way of sweeping the whole thing under the rug. The narrator has also moved on with his life, but he misses the friendship and is both angry and a little contemptuous at how the other guy reacted to the whole thing.
I'm not suggesting this actually happened to James Mercer, it is just what the lyrics suggest to me --maybe because it's so rare to hear a song about the intense emotions that can still exist in a purely Platonic friendship.