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"
Well, my grandpa fought in World War 2, my uncle fought in ?Nam
My father was too young, he went to school and met my mom
And her dad always told us stories around dinner time
And there's one he told when I was young that sticks out in my mind
He said, 10 years after daddy taught me about the birds and bees
I was stranded in Pearl Harbor fighting off the Japanese
When the kamikaze pilots came and dove in without warning
I was on the Arizona on a warm December morning
I remember when I was a younger man
We were solders fighting in a foreign land
Now I'm older and it?s happening again
It was hard to have forgiveness for the things they did that day
And our president decided we should make their people pay
So we dropped on Nagasaki and we cut them down to size
And the one we dropped on Hiroshima left them vaporized
And I heard some Christians say
?What would Jesus do??
What if you were on the wrong side
Would he point the gun at you?
And they read through every word of Matthew, Mark and Luke and John
So they could see if killing was the side that Christ was on
I remember when I was a younger man
We were solders fighting in a foreign land
Now I'm older and it?s happening again
And they separate the church and state and keep God out of schools
So our governments can educate based upon their rules
But people start to wonder if our politics make sense
When religion is our best excuse for national defense
And when our citizens start saying that our wars are not okay
And Washington keeps telling them, ?God loves the USA?
And they teach us history so we can learn from our mistakes
And this generation wants to know how many years it takes
To change the way we treat our neighbors all across the land
?Cause if we don't change our hearts, we repeat the past again
I remember when I was a younger man
We were soldiers fighting in a foreign land
Now we're older and it?s happening again
When my grandpa finished talking, we went walking he and I
I was thinking of the future and how scared I was to die
Now my best friend?s overseas in the desert where it?s dry
Fighting for our country and I need a reason why
I remember when he was a younger man
Now he's a soldier fighting in a foreign land
Now we're older, God bring him home again
My father was too young, he went to school and met my mom
And her dad always told us stories around dinner time
And there's one he told when I was young that sticks out in my mind
He said, 10 years after daddy taught me about the birds and bees
I was stranded in Pearl Harbor fighting off the Japanese
When the kamikaze pilots came and dove in without warning
I was on the Arizona on a warm December morning
I remember when I was a younger man
We were solders fighting in a foreign land
Now I'm older and it?s happening again
It was hard to have forgiveness for the things they did that day
And our president decided we should make their people pay
So we dropped on Nagasaki and we cut them down to size
And the one we dropped on Hiroshima left them vaporized
And I heard some Christians say
?What would Jesus do??
What if you were on the wrong side
Would he point the gun at you?
And they read through every word of Matthew, Mark and Luke and John
So they could see if killing was the side that Christ was on
I remember when I was a younger man
We were solders fighting in a foreign land
Now I'm older and it?s happening again
And they separate the church and state and keep God out of schools
So our governments can educate based upon their rules
But people start to wonder if our politics make sense
When religion is our best excuse for national defense
And when our citizens start saying that our wars are not okay
And Washington keeps telling them, ?God loves the USA?
And they teach us history so we can learn from our mistakes
And this generation wants to know how many years it takes
To change the way we treat our neighbors all across the land
?Cause if we don't change our hearts, we repeat the past again
I remember when I was a younger man
We were soldiers fighting in a foreign land
Now we're older and it?s happening again
When my grandpa finished talking, we went walking he and I
I was thinking of the future and how scared I was to die
Now my best friend?s overseas in the desert where it?s dry
Fighting for our country and I need a reason why
I remember when he was a younger man
Now he's a soldier fighting in a foreign land
Now we're older, God bring him home again
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very simply a anti war protest song, still i think its one of his best and he raises some pretty good points in the song