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"
In the name of desperation
In the name of wretched pain
In the name of all creation
Gone insane
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Go
On the way to paranoia
On the crooked borderline
On the way to great destroyer
Doom design
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Once upon a planet burning once upon a flame
Once upon a fear returning all in vain
Do you feel that hope is fading? Do you comprehend?
Do you feel it terminating in the end?
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Hardwired to self-destruct
Self-destruct
Self-destruct
Self-destruct
In the name of wretched pain
In the name of all creation
Gone insane
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Go
On the way to paranoia
On the crooked borderline
On the way to great destroyer
Doom design
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Once upon a planet burning once upon a flame
Once upon a fear returning all in vain
Do you feel that hope is fading? Do you comprehend?
Do you feel it terminating in the end?
We're so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
Hardwired to self-destruct
Self-destruct
Self-destruct
Self-destruct
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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Little Feat
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
My first thought on hearing this one was also the 2016 (US) presidential election, although on further consideration, I'm not sure a song specifically about that would have been ready in time for a November CD release. Sure fits well, though.
Of course, it also fits well in many ways with the general state of the world -- Brexit, Syria, Daesh, Russian involvement in Ukraine, North Korea doing nuclear testing, the list goes on and on and on...
To quote a different song, "There's never been a time as fucked up as this."
@fjb This is very very wrong if you've seen any interviews about the song
This song is just a summation of all the songs and what they all touch upon, greedy, inhumanity, morals, war, ptsd, naciscism, etc. It takes all these and just asks the question, are we all Hardwired... to self destruct
I'm too lazy to interpret a deeper meaning, but the song is definitely about humanity in a nutshell. We're never going to learn of our flawed was and in the end it will be our own doings that destroy the planet and ourselves.
Not sure if it has anything to do with Trump vs Clinton 2016, but the comparisons make sense.
Just heard the song, and as awesome as the song is, I am just taking a stab at this one. This is my first attempt at interpreting a song, so it might be completely wrong.
I think this song is about the 2016 election year in America, and how most (if not all) the candidates represent [or at least perceived to be] a great danger to the world.
"In the name of desperation... in the name of wretched pain...." speaks about how the parties of the U.S. dislike the current direction America is headed and, out of desperation to get out of the current "pain" they feel, seek some type of resolution. Whether you're a conservative who dislikes the way people are becoming too P.C., or if you're a liberal who believes America is structurally flawed, this line speaks to you.
"We're so fucked, shit out of luck" means how the current candidates (in the most unbiased lens) are not fit to preside over the United States, hence the way Americans are basically screwed no matter who wins.
Meanwhile, the titular line "hardwired to self destruct" could be the way our political system is flawed to begin with, allowing the presidential predicament to occur in the first place; the major example of the current topic being how, in California, the presidential primary should have gone to Bernie Sanders, but was supposedly rigged in Hillary Clinton's favor. This sentiment is also echoed in [what I believe to be the actual] line "doom design", rather than "do design".
"On the way to paranoia... crooked borderlines" is about how the American people are paranoid about the way in which the United States is going to hell, whether it be in the form of mass shootings, Islamic extremism, open borders (hence "borderlines"), police brutality, racism, or class warfare; this may contribute to the following line "on the way to great destroyer", symbolizing Americans resorting to electing the great destroyer as president.
The last verse "once upon a planet burning.... once upon a spirit turning all in vain..." could be a reference to how America was once one of Britain's colonies, which dominated the entire planet, symbolizing how the earth was burning under a [British] flame. The spirit that's turning in vain is how the founding fathers of America would be ashamed at what they had fought for if they realized that the U.S. was about to basically fall under a new tyranny.
With the last lines about hope actually being straightforward from that point, I conclude my very first interpretation. Once again, it could totally be false, but I like to think I wasn't the only one who was thinking this when I first heard this song. Whatever the meaning is, I'm glad to Metallica going back to their thrash roots! \m/
@ThrashAddict I mostly agree, but i think that the "spirit turning" part is wrong, in the song james sings "a fear returning", so it changes the meaning of that part. When my last change applies to the song, i will fix that as well.
@ThrashAddict honestly, it is not, it touches on it and references the election, but it is much more a summation that asks if we are hardwired... to self destruct
If I only take the chorus on a first-thoughts basis it just sounds like James is singing about how we are wired to screw ourselves over. We're some of the smartest, curious, most inquisitive and creative beings that will ever exist. But that will be our downfall. We've discovered so much through technology, but it will bring us to our demise.
We've created nuclear warheads. We've created a world online where we can live and only interact with "friends" virtually. We idolise absolute fucking idiots. We watch TV shows that kill our creativity and dull our personalities. We're slowly becoming robots and our materialistic world gets more and more materialistic all the time. The western world is losing its way and the next generation is only going to have it worse.