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"
Yeah grew up with killers, I didn't know they was killers
We was just together man, playing Mega-man on Sega man
Your mama loved me to death, she reminded me of Afeni
Yeah real black queen
If I had a genie,
I wish that she ain't struggle no more
Y'all wouldn't have to go to sleep with all the roaches if she wasn't so poor
You told me when you came to my house
This shit was like a timeout from reality
One night you asked me what I'm crying about
'Cause you was staying over for the weekend
I woke up from out my sleep
When I heard mama and my stepfather beefin
I don't know if he been drinkin
But I know this shit got loud and I heard rumbling from struggling
And rolling on the ground
Could never get used to that sound
My mama saying get off me
My tears is tumbling now
I wish that you never saw me
'Cause I felt like a coward, so powerless I was only 12
I wish I would'be bust through that door my fucking self
And grab the Glock right off the fucking shelf
If nothing else scared a nigga shitless
There goes two of my wishes
Forever scarred, determined to get some heart
No matter how big the nigga, no matter how small you are
Fast-forward to our older years
Two different paths
You used to talk to me about college but that shit didn't last
Waste of potential, getting cash, what could I say?
So tired of not having things, you never see it my way
Too proud to fold
Your demise
One day to my surprise, my nigga called me, told me you just caught a body twice your size
I asked if it was self defense, he said it was defense of pride
And that they trying to give you ten, but if you lucky you'll do five damn
Not my nigga
The same one that told me that things always get better
Just trust me, don't cry my nigga
The news call him a killer, but he my nigga
Sad shit
Ay yo genie last wish, free my nigga
We was just together man, playing Mega-man on Sega man
Your mama loved me to death, she reminded me of Afeni
Yeah real black queen
If I had a genie,
I wish that she ain't struggle no more
Y'all wouldn't have to go to sleep with all the roaches if she wasn't so poor
You told me when you came to my house
This shit was like a timeout from reality
One night you asked me what I'm crying about
'Cause you was staying over for the weekend
I woke up from out my sleep
When I heard mama and my stepfather beefin
I don't know if he been drinkin
But I know this shit got loud and I heard rumbling from struggling
And rolling on the ground
Could never get used to that sound
My mama saying get off me
My tears is tumbling now
I wish that you never saw me
'Cause I felt like a coward, so powerless I was only 12
I wish I would'be bust through that door my fucking self
And grab the Glock right off the fucking shelf
If nothing else scared a nigga shitless
There goes two of my wishes
Forever scarred, determined to get some heart
No matter how big the nigga, no matter how small you are
Fast-forward to our older years
Two different paths
You used to talk to me about college but that shit didn't last
Waste of potential, getting cash, what could I say?
So tired of not having things, you never see it my way
Too proud to fold
Your demise
One day to my surprise, my nigga called me, told me you just caught a body twice your size
I asked if it was self defense, he said it was defense of pride
And that they trying to give you ten, but if you lucky you'll do five damn
Not my nigga
The same one that told me that things always get better
Just trust me, don't cry my nigga
The news call him a killer, but he my nigga
Sad shit
Ay yo genie last wish, free my nigga
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
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The Night We Met
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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