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"
Ten years ago, on a cold, dark night
There was someone killed neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the man who ran looked a lot like me
She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave while the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
The judge said "Son, what is your alibi
If you were somewhere else, then you don't have to die"
I spoke not a word thought it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife
The scaffold was high and eternity near
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil she cries over my bones
There was someone killed neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the man who ran looked a lot like me
She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave while the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
The judge said "Son, what is your alibi
If you were somewhere else, then you don't have to die"
I spoke not a word thought it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife
The scaffold was high and eternity near
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil she cries over my bones
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings
The Long Black Veil Lyrics as written by Marijohn Wilkin Danny Dill
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
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