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're pink, you're young, you're middle-class
They say it doesn't matter
Fifteen blue shirts and womanly hands
You're shootin' up the ladder
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something
Sometimes you stay in bed
Sometimes you go, la, di, da, di, da, di, da, da
Until your eyes roll back into your head
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
They say it doesn't matter
Fifteen blue shirts and womanly hands
You're shootin' up the ladder
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something
Sometimes you stay in bed
Sometimes you go, la, di, da, di, da, di, da, da
Until your eyes roll back into your head
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
Your mind is racing like a pro now
Oh my god, it doesn't mean a lot to you
One time, you were a glowing young ruffian
Oh my god, it was a million years ago
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
You're dumbstruck, baby, now you know
You're dumbstruck, baby
Lyrics submitted by lampada, edited by rockaction
Racing Like a Pro Lyrics as written by Bryce D. Dessner Aaron B. Dessner
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
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
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
I think this one is about a girl who he used to hang with who got an office job, stopped doing what she really wanted to do to go corporate ("shooting up the ladder") and make a lot of money.
"Your mind is racing like a pro, now oh my god it doesn’t mean a lot to you one time you were a glowing young ruffian oh my god it was a million years ago"
She used to be young and happy and reckless.. caring about completely different things. He's acknowledging that she lost who she was by growing up and doing what's expected of her. What she's doing with her life doesn't mean a whole lot to her, but she continues to do it anyway, 'cause that's what success is.
The other posts may be correct, but while listening casually I thought it was about something completely different. I thought it was about a depressed, middle class corporate type that resorts to shooting up drugs. Veins on the arm are the blue laddders and eyes are rolling back in the head.. This person sleeps a lot (depression). Could be waaay off, but that was my original take. These other explanatinos make a lot of sense too.
i agree with you bubblescreen... <br /> <br /> Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something<br /> sometimes you stay in bed<br /> sometimes you go la di da di da di da da<br /> til your eyes roll back into your head<br /> <br /> I think these lines are the key to understand the whole song... the protagonist acts like he lost a sense for his life, probably he's depressed as he sleeps a lot... and what does he do to have his eyes rolled back into his head? drugs... <br /> <br /> i just LOVE all tha national lyrics... they are so obscure... meaning they are difficult to understand, but also meaning Dark...
oh man i think i interpreted this song completely different. i thought it was about someone who has trouble sleeping, and hundreds of thousands or thoughts are rolling through their head that kind of don't relate, and sometimes when they are having trouble sleeping, they bake a cake or something, and sometimes they just start singing incoherently. the part where he is like "you're dumbstruck baby, now you know" i think it could mean a lot of things..... possibly that she (yeah, i also thought it was about a girl) eventually falls asleep and cannot believe it.
but then again, maybe i am just saying that because that is how i feel every night when i go to bed and don't fall asleep for hours.
I got a similar thing, at least for parts of it. Thoughts stopping someone from sleeping - sometimes you get desperate and just go la di la di da to shut it out.
you know what, I heard 'pronoun' too the first time... I agree with you guys except I kind of thought it might be about a man, not a woman (and that the line about 'womanly' hands was a reference to someone with a cushy office job and yuppy metro lifestyle)
If it weren't for the title, I would FIGHT for "pronoun".
Lovely song, definitely agree on the corporate ladder climber interpretation.
I definitely heard "racing like a pronoun" for about a year after hearing the album.
my favorite song off the new cd, i think the begining is about seeing the change in somebody you care about...
The other posts may be correct, but while listening casually I thought it was about something completely different. I thought it was about a depressed, middle class corporate type that resorts to shooting up drugs. Veins on the arm are the blue laddders and eyes are rolling back in the head.. This person sleeps a lot (depression). Could be waaay off, but that was my original take. These other explanatinos make a lot of sense too.
right on, i totally agree with you limbless.
... so i can't lie, the first time i heard this song, i didn't have the song names with me, so i thought he said "your mind is racing like a pronoun" and thought it was some strange metaphor for egotism...oops
Haha. I heard "pronoun" too! Funny. I also agree with bee_6 about the gender of our main character here. The "fifteen blue shirts" is what sells me on that. I don't necessarily see a woman owning the row of identical blue, collared work shirts suggested by those lyrics. The shirt lyric also adds to the idea of a corporate lackey trying to work his way through the system.
:) I was just coming to check whether it was pronoun or not!
That'd be an great lyric.
My friend and I were considering writing to them to ask if they'd change it.