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"
I saw a hippy girl on 8th avenue
She barely looked at me for a second or two
And I suddenly realized I no longer looked much like a hippy
mmmmm
She had a long thin dress and rainbow clothes
Not long ago I wore one of those
But now-a-days I guess I don't very much like anything
mmmmm
I had a great pair of bellbottoms, I had two
My friend borrowed one and the other I outgrew
And now to the eye I'm turning into another non-descript guy
But I still travel light and my hair is still long
I still hate deoderant and I still sing songs
But over the years I've noticed I'm not dressing as colourfully and psychedelic as I used to
'Cause I wore my tye-dyes until they rotted to shreds
And I can no longer follow The Greatful Dead
And it's gotten to the point where I don't even identify with most Phish fans anymore
And someday soon I know I'll cut my hair
And a week after that I know I won't even care
It's how it all comes to all along
Everything that you feel will one day feel wrong
I was talking to my friend Eric
Just to see what he thunk
And he said "Jeff, it's weird
But I no longer look like a punk"
I guess we don't need our clothes for an identity crutch
And we looked at each other and we didn't look like much
And we looked out at the world like a movie theatre
At all the hippies and the punks and the skinheads and the skaters
And someday or other maybe sooner or later they'll come to the realization
That what's important is whether you can carry on a human conversation
It's not what you wear on the outside
It's how you think and feel on the inside.
She barely looked at me for a second or two
And I suddenly realized I no longer looked much like a hippy
mmmmm
She had a long thin dress and rainbow clothes
Not long ago I wore one of those
But now-a-days I guess I don't very much like anything
mmmmm
I had a great pair of bellbottoms, I had two
My friend borrowed one and the other I outgrew
And now to the eye I'm turning into another non-descript guy
But I still travel light and my hair is still long
I still hate deoderant and I still sing songs
But over the years I've noticed I'm not dressing as colourfully and psychedelic as I used to
'Cause I wore my tye-dyes until they rotted to shreds
And I can no longer follow The Greatful Dead
And it's gotten to the point where I don't even identify with most Phish fans anymore
And someday soon I know I'll cut my hair
And a week after that I know I won't even care
It's how it all comes to all along
Everything that you feel will one day feel wrong
I was talking to my friend Eric
Just to see what he thunk
And he said "Jeff, it's weird
But I no longer look like a punk"
I guess we don't need our clothes for an identity crutch
And we looked at each other and we didn't look like much
And we looked out at the world like a movie theatre
At all the hippies and the punks and the skinheads and the skaters
And someday or other maybe sooner or later they'll come to the realization
That what's important is whether you can carry on a human conversation
It's not what you wear on the outside
It's how you think and feel on the inside.
Lyrics submitted by WendyPops
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