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"
She says she barely sleeps
And if she does it's fitfully
Hears footsteps in the leaves
And if she dreams she dreams of
The sounds you'll never speak
The words left out between the beat
Of clashing teeth and tongues
The roar of background hum
That blooms inside her listening ears
To be the noise she wants to hear
She only wants to do you proud
Only wants to make you proud now
And in a stranger's bed
Head next to stranger's head
She chokes on words that won't come out
The TV's turned up far too loud, too loud
So here we go again
Head on the block again
The guillotine has just quickened pace
Teeth sink in to leave their taste of blood
And her head hits the floor
Lips still moving, mouthing to implore
"You're all I want, you're all I want, you're all I want
And all I want's you..."
She says she barely sleeps
And if she does it's fitfully
Hears footsteps in the leaves
And if she dreams she dreams of
The sounds you'll never speak
The words you leave between the beat
Of clashing teeth and tongues
The roar of background hum
That blooms inside her listening ears
To be the song she wants to hear
She only wants to do you proud
Only wants to do you proud now
And in a foreign bed
Head next to foreign head
A sad song in a minor key
A sad song in a minor key, please
And if she does it's fitfully
Hears footsteps in the leaves
And if she dreams she dreams of
The sounds you'll never speak
The words left out between the beat
Of clashing teeth and tongues
The roar of background hum
That blooms inside her listening ears
To be the noise she wants to hear
She only wants to do you proud
Only wants to make you proud now
And in a stranger's bed
Head next to stranger's head
She chokes on words that won't come out
The TV's turned up far too loud, too loud
So here we go again
Head on the block again
The guillotine has just quickened pace
Teeth sink in to leave their taste of blood
And her head hits the floor
Lips still moving, mouthing to implore
"You're all I want, you're all I want, you're all I want
And all I want's you..."
She says she barely sleeps
And if she does it's fitfully
Hears footsteps in the leaves
And if she dreams she dreams of
The sounds you'll never speak
The words you leave between the beat
Of clashing teeth and tongues
The roar of background hum
That blooms inside her listening ears
To be the song she wants to hear
She only wants to do you proud
Only wants to do you proud now
And in a foreign bed
Head next to foreign head
A sad song in a minor key
A sad song in a minor key, please
Lyrics submitted by RLHJones
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Definitely think this is about a relationship that has ended the girl is not giving it up. She "sleeps fitfully", thinking of her lover and just wants to make him proud and try to give up the relationship. She finds a stranger to become intimate with but, in the end, the original guy is all that she wants.
"And if she dreams she dreams of / the sounds you'll never speak" is one of my favorite lyrics. Still keeping in line with the fact that she sleeps fitfully, her head filled with thoughts of her lost lover and only desiring to hear their voice again, but knowing that she lost him.