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"
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah da da da de day
Ah la la de day
Sweet the sin
Bitter than taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day
She runs through the streets
With eyes painted red
Under a black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will
Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand
Still
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah da da da de day
Ah la la de day
Sweet the sin
Bitter than taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day
She runs through the streets
With eyes painted red
Under a black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will
Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand
Still
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
Running to Stand Still Lyrics as written by Dave Evans Adam Clayton
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Does anyone have any idea about the "cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice" bit? It's obviously a reflection of the contradiction "running to stand still", which is a bit more obvious, but surely these phrases have their own meanings too.
I think those paradoxes (cry without weeping, talk without speaking incl. the title) is with reference to those people who grew up in areas like Ballymun in Dublin who get 'lost in the cracks' of society as such, the ones society forgets about in a sense, the ones with no voice, I suppose. Prhaps it also refers to being trapped in the vicious circle of addiction etc., knowing your entire life will probably be spent in these dismal projects. She sees seven towers, but she sees one way out i.e. escapism in the form of heroin usage.
@Deltawing it's horrible but true that sometimes, as I grew up I was not permitted to express myself without being mocked, sent out of the room, or punished. What a way to mess up someone's life! I got very used to screaming inside. Not able to raise my voice. Talk about torture.