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 opened a bank account when I was nine years old
I closed it when I was eighteen
I gave them every penny that I'd saved and they gave my blood and my urine a number
And now I'm sitting in this waiting room playing with the toys
And I am here to exercise my freedom of choice
I passed their handheld signs
I went through their picket lines
They gathered when they saw me coming
They shouted when they saw me cross
I said, "why don't you go home?
Just leave me alone
I'm just another woman lost
You are like fish in the water who don't know that they are wet
But as far as I can tell the world isn't perfect yet"
And his bored eyes were obscene
On his denim thighs a magazine
I wish he'd never come here with me
In fact I wish he'd never come near me
I wish his shoulder wasn't touching mine
I am growing older waiting in this line
But some of life's best lessons are learned at the worst times
And under the fierce fluorescent she offered her hand for me to hold
She offered stability and calm and I was crushing her palm
Through the pinch-pull wincing
My smile unconvincing
On that sterile battlefield that sees only casualties
Never heroes
My heart hit absolute zero
And lucille, your voice still sounds in me
Yeah mine was a relatively easy tragedy
The profile of our country looks a little less hard-nosed
But you know that picket line persisted and that clinic's since been closed
They keep pounding their fists on reality hoping it will break
But you know I don't think there's one of them that leads a life free of mistakes
Yes I'm not going to sacrifice my freedom of choice
No you can't make me sacrifice my freedom of choice
No you can't make us sacrifice our freedom of choice
I closed it when I was eighteen
I gave them every penny that I'd saved and they gave my blood and my urine a number
And now I'm sitting in this waiting room playing with the toys
And I am here to exercise my freedom of choice
I passed their handheld signs
I went through their picket lines
They gathered when they saw me coming
They shouted when they saw me cross
I said, "why don't you go home?
Just leave me alone
I'm just another woman lost
You are like fish in the water who don't know that they are wet
But as far as I can tell the world isn't perfect yet"
And his bored eyes were obscene
On his denim thighs a magazine
I wish he'd never come here with me
In fact I wish he'd never come near me
I wish his shoulder wasn't touching mine
I am growing older waiting in this line
But some of life's best lessons are learned at the worst times
And under the fierce fluorescent she offered her hand for me to hold
She offered stability and calm and I was crushing her palm
Through the pinch-pull wincing
My smile unconvincing
On that sterile battlefield that sees only casualties
Never heroes
My heart hit absolute zero
And lucille, your voice still sounds in me
Yeah mine was a relatively easy tragedy
The profile of our country looks a little less hard-nosed
But you know that picket line persisted and that clinic's since been closed
They keep pounding their fists on reality hoping it will break
But you know I don't think there's one of them that leads a life free of mistakes
Yes I'm not going to sacrifice my freedom of choice
No you can't make me sacrifice my freedom of choice
No you can't make us sacrifice our freedom of choice
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Note: This really did happen to Ani and she did feel incredible sadness and remorse but continues to speak up about the importance of choice.
What's not included in these lyrics are the end:
"I'm not going to sacrifice My freedom of choice No, you can't make me sacrifice My freedom of choice No, you can't make us sacrifice Our freedom of choice."
Anyway, it's a jaw-dropping, incredible song. She really bares her soul in this.