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"
The day I knew you’d not come back
I built this castle out of glass
But I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
No, I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
I built this colonnade of sand
Stretched out like fingers from my hand
With the waves coming in
In the morning, I had to build again
With the waves coming in
In the morning, I had to build again
The day I knew you’d not come back
I built this castle out of glass
But I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
No, I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
I built this castle out of glass
But I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
No, I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
I built this colonnade of sand
Stretched out like fingers from my hand
With the waves coming in
In the morning, I had to build again
With the waves coming in
In the morning, I had to build again
The day I knew you’d not come back
I built this castle out of glass
But I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
No, I could never understand
Where the windows and walls began and end
Lyrics submitted by constant, edited by peter72395
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.
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
This song is so beautiful. It's the kind of song that I can't listen to without singing throughout the day. It makes me think of the death of a loved one (more so a lover) although it could really be about losing someone to any cause. When you know that they'll never be back again, you feel that you just cannot understand it. You try and hide within yourself, but your feelings can be seen by anyone who cares to look (like a person who lives in a glass home.. or castle). In the beginning, attempts to re-build your life never seem to work out, like sand being washed away by the waves. And so ends my first post ever.
where do you get this song?
Very unusual for the band. Sounds like it was done after listening to a lot of cool jazz. Interesting jammed-out thing. Not characteristic of this band, but beautiful. I think it was done at the same session as "The Perfect Crime #1", but Colin doesn't sound drunk on this one. Then again, he didn't sound completely wasted on the other...
I'm pretty certain that "colony" is supposed to be "colonnade." A colonnade is a series of pillars- Which goes along with the whole "castle" lyric in the first verse.
I love this song. I think it's really amazing that they can have so many different sounds and still sound like themselves. You can get this song and The Perfect Crime #1 here mp3skull.com/mp3/the_decemberists_day.html
This song ventures far from where the Decemberists usually go with their songs, which might be part of why it was removed from The Crain Wife. The beautiful slow jam is about the realization of loss and it's represented through the metaphor of the castle made of glass or sand. The castle is like the sense of denial, and how refusing the truth is a way of protecting yourself.
The glass castle shows the distortion of reality from inside the castle. the real world outside the castle, as seen through the window, looks the same as world seen through the glass walls. In this way the glass castle, the rejection of the loss, becomes the same as the reality.
his second image is the sand castle in the waves. The castle is the belief that someone might come back which becomes shattered over and over again be a greater inevitable force. The image of the fingers in the sand soaking in the waves is so clear, but also forms a metaphor.
This song, although originally recorded separately from The Perfect Crime #1, and if you look at it on the Decemberists website you can see they are listed as different tracks, however when it was released through the Starbucks Bonus Tracks, it was grouped together with The Perfect Crime #1, which makes me think that they were not intended to be thought of as two halves of a whole. However, when put together, this song really makes the Perfect Crime #1 look much more sad. It seems more like it's a juvenile attempt at rejecting this same idea of loss. As if it's about stealing "you" back, and then The Day I knew You Would Not Come Back is the realization that it's impossible.