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'm in the city you hated
My eyes have fallen
Counting the clicks with the living dead
My eyes are red
I'm in the crush and I hate it
My eyes have fallen
I'm having trouble inside my skin
I'll try to keep my skeletons in
Is it weird to be back in the south?
And can they even tell
That the city girl was ever there or anywhere?
I'm having trouble inside my skin
I'll try to keep my skeletons in
I'll be a friend and a fuck-up and everything
But I'll never be
Anything you ever want me to be
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah, ah
I don't need any help to be breakable, believe me
I know nobody else who can laugh along to any kind of joke
I won't need any help to be lonely when you leave me
It'll be easy to cover
Gather my skeletons far inside
It'll be summer in Dallas
Before I realize, ah
I don't want you to grieve but I want you to sympathize, alright
I can't blame you for losing your mind for a little while, so did I
I don't want you to change but I want you to recognize, that I
It'll be easy to cover
Gather your skeletons far inside
It'll be summer in Dallas before you realize
That I'll never be
Anything you ever want me to be
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah, ah
My eyes have fallen
Counting the clicks with the living dead
My eyes are red
I'm in the crush and I hate it
My eyes have fallen
I'm having trouble inside my skin
I'll try to keep my skeletons in
Is it weird to be back in the south?
And can they even tell
That the city girl was ever there or anywhere?
I'm having trouble inside my skin
I'll try to keep my skeletons in
I'll be a friend and a fuck-up and everything
But I'll never be
Anything you ever want me to be
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah, ah
I don't need any help to be breakable, believe me
I know nobody else who can laugh along to any kind of joke
I won't need any help to be lonely when you leave me
It'll be easy to cover
Gather my skeletons far inside
It'll be summer in Dallas
Before I realize, ah
I don't want you to grieve but I want you to sympathize, alright
I can't blame you for losing your mind for a little while, so did I
I don't want you to change but I want you to recognize, that I
It'll be easy to cover
Gather your skeletons far inside
It'll be summer in Dallas before you realize
That I'll never be
Anything you ever want me to be
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah
I keep coming back here where everything slipped, ah-ah-ah
But I will not spill my guts out, ah, ah
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings, edited by jahjahjeh, Naninger
Slipped Lyrics as written by Matthew D. Berninger Aaron Dessner
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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For me, this is a song about a man who was in a relationship, and loved, and tried, but it didn't work out because he needed to travel and she didn't want to.
"I keep coming back here where everything slipped, but I will not spill my guts out" He knows it's done, and there's no point trying anymore - it is what it is.
"I'll be a friend and a fuck up and everything, but I'll never be what you wanted me to be". A partner, and a lover, somebody reliable. He wanted to be, but it could never work out. She needed him to be more but he could never be.
At the end of it all, it's ok with him - he's been alone (not literally, but maybe emotionally) for a long time, and he's ok that it's just happened again.
She's upset, but in all honesty she'll get over it.
She's trying to make sense of him needing to pack it all in and leave her (whether it's for work or tour, or because he simply needs to leave). He wants her to come but she's not interested and blames him for leaving as if it's something he can control. She's angry, but he wants her to just recognize that it has to be done. It'll be summer in Dallas before she realises - which he hopes will help move her on from the pain.