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 legion is on fire
The legion is on fire
The legion is on fire
I was born in a convict colony
I was torn from the land that mothered me
Mother, may I? She said, "Yes, you may"
Well, today I, I said, right here, today
You're a convict colony
If you're running from the sun
You're a convict colony, a convict colony
And you don't really want it
You don't really want it
I was birthed from the earth
Fought my way to this day
Now I'm grown truth be told
I'll be here 'til you're gone
You're a convict colony
You're running from the sun
You're a convict colony
You're reaching for your gun
You're a convict colony
You're running from the sun
You're a convict colony, a convict colony
And you don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want
The legion is on fire
The legion is on fire
I was born in a convict colony
I was torn from the land that mothered me
Mother, may I? She said, "Yes, you may"
Well, today I, I said, right here, today
You're a convict colony
If you're running from the sun
You're a convict colony, a convict colony
And you don't really want it
You don't really want it
I was birthed from the earth
Fought my way to this day
Now I'm grown truth be told
I'll be here 'til you're gone
You're a convict colony
You're running from the sun
You're a convict colony
You're reaching for your gun
You're a convict colony
You're running from the sun
You're a convict colony, a convict colony
And you don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want it
You don't really want
Lyrics submitted by swollen uvula
Convict Colony Lyrics as written by Saul Williams Chris Davis
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This was the first collaborative effort between Trent and I. He sent a cd of 14 tracks to my hotel in Sydney as I was there doing 5 nights of poetry at the Opera House as part of the Sydney Arts Festival. When I first listened to the tracks I didn't like any of them (Trent doesn't know this. Hi Trent:). I didn't dislike them, but nothing hit me over the head. I felt like I could tell if there was something he wrote with me in mind or something that was left over from his previous work. I thought all of the tracks needed some serious "pimp my ride" sort of hacking in order for them to appeal to my musical sensibility. The people at echoingthesound.com will probably burn me for this, but I remember listening to that cd for the first time and thinking "oh, how cute". Obviously the tracks grew on me, and in me, in major ways, but it did take a minute. I had a lot of openning up to do. And that's what I was looking forward to doing in this collaboration.... The beat that I jacked for Convict came from about the 10th track. I wasn't traveling with my equipment and my idea for the track was to confusing to explain to CX so I kept my musical idea in my head and started writing the lyrics. Obviously, Australia is a Convict Colony. In my estimation so is the US and few other "allies". I was mad at the lack of Aboriginal people I was seeing out and about Sydney. The projects in RedFern looked exactly like the projects I grew up around, with people getting high or drunk on the stairwells, hanging clothes to dry out the window etc. I even had a bunch Aboriginal kids walk up to me and tell me excitedly that they were Niggers too. I wanted to write something they could scream at the top of their lungs. The synth line I did myself at home which Trent later retouched before we started replacing sounds with Cazoos. Drumwise, there wasn't as much movement or complexity in my original demo. Trent and Atticus taught me and CX some secrets. It was cool how they would show us how we could finesse it, then sit back and let us do it. Very ninja-ish. -Saul Williams saulwilliams.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi