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 went into the kitchen cupboard
Got yourself another hour and gave
Half of it to me
We sat their looking at the faces
Of the strangers in the pages
Until we knew them mathematically
They were in our minds
Until forever
But we didn't mind
We didn't know better
So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking
While we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called our calculation
Perfect love
Didn't even know
That love was bigger
Didn't even know
Didn't even know that love was so, so
Hey hey hey hey
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
So we made the hard decision
And we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones
Our hearts were little stones
Pulled 'em out they weren't beating
And we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on our granite counter top
We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard til they sparked
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
Oo oo oo oo oo oo
Got yourself another hour and gave
Half of it to me
We sat their looking at the faces
Of the strangers in the pages
Until we knew them mathematically
They were in our minds
Until forever
But we didn't mind
We didn't know better
So we made our own computer
Out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking
While we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called our calculation
Perfect love
Didn't even know
That love was bigger
Didn't even know
Didn't even know that love was so, so
Hey hey hey hey
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
So we made the hard decision
And we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones
Our hearts were little stones
Pulled 'em out they weren't beating
And we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on our granite counter top
We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard til they sparked
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us up
Hey this fire, hey this fire
I'm burning us
Oh, oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo
Oo oo oo oo oo oo
Lyrics submitted by incurable_humanist, edited by Sefumax
The Calculation Lyrics as written by Regina Spektor
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I love this song! The funniest part is the first time I heard it I was like "eh" and the second time I was like "I CAN'T STOP LISTENING!" haha. Does anyone else feel like a few songs on this album are reminiscent of Bjork? (this one and Machine remind me of her the most) Just curious. :D