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 think I saw you in the shadows
I move in closer beneath your windows
Who would suspect me of this rapture?
And who but my black hearted love
And who but my black hearted love
When you call out my name in rapture
I volunteer my soul for murder
I wish this moment here forever
And you are my black hearted love
And you are my black hearted love
In the rain, in the evening I will come again
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I move in closer beneath your windows
Who would suspect me of this rapture?
And who but my black hearted love
And who but my black hearted love
When you call out my name in rapture
I volunteer my soul for murder
I wish this moment here forever
And you are my black hearted love
And you are my black hearted love
In the rain, in the evening I will come again
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
I'd like to take you;
I'd like to take you to a place I know
My black hearted
Lyrics submitted by megique, edited by bluestraggler
Black Hearted Love Lyrics as written by Polly Jean Harvey John Parish
Lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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I personally think its about a woman whose in love with a man who uses her for sex, but she loves him and enjoys thinking even for fleeting moments that he has mutual feelings. "i volunteer my soul for murder" ... i interpret as her knowing and acknowledging that he is gonna break her into pieces. but she can't stop. "i'd like to take you to a place i know, my blackhearted" meaning she'd like him to experience how she feels it has the sound of a woman obsessed.
@LittleFolkieGurl <br /> <br /> I just make a word after seen this video...Aireleased endorphins ... I felt you so much! Thank you!
I don't think its so much about "obsession". It could also be about realizing a fantasy of something or someone who has always been just be a fantasy, the black hearted love that you are fatally attracted to.
"When you call out my name in rapture I volunteer my soul for murder"
the inevitability of the harm. she is okay with knowing he makes her give up complete control (if even just for that brief moment). She knows she is helpless to all that he embodies (the "dark" one who will never be good for her, but she's come to terms with it). He'll actually lurk around in her mind from the past and she'll wonder, occasionally seeing him "in the shadows". He's the black hearted one, but her being able to "take you to a place" means she is aware of things he is not and has just as many secrets to show him, so perhaps they are on an equal level.
but yes, fatal love.
I do not believe "Black Hearted Love" to be about a woman relating to a particular man. This song is about a woman's relationship with her daemon - her "lover within". The piece has a very private and almost supernatural feel to it. The video exemplifies this - There is no man present - it is Polly alone, on a bouncy castle, in the middle of a wood, in a manner of ecstasy.
This song represents to me a woman on the losing side of a romantic power exchange, where she may have hoped for or been deceived into thinking she held more value to her black-hearted lover. She becomes obsessed and desperate to reconcile or balance the power so she takes any crumb he throws at her. She dreams and fantasizes of changing him but its futile. It's sad I lived it!
Agreed with LittleFolkieGirl...it's definitely not completely one-sided - "you call out my name in rapture" etc but it definitely seems she's way more into him than he to her and he's using her for sex, yep, definitely.
Great song, loving the new album. Can't believe she's almost 40!
wow wow wow
a little help with this one please?
she's a women obsessed. She is following him, watching him, and it makes her excited. It excites her to lust for a man, a man who she wouldn't normally lust after.
Sounds like some dangerous sex games.
This song is gorgeous! It evokes a lot of mixed feelings... well at least it does for me!