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"
You hadn't seen your father in such a long time
He died in the arms of his lover, how dare he?
Your mother never left the house
She never married anyone else
You took it upon yourself to console her
You reminded her so much of your father
So you were banished and you
Wonder why you're so hypersensitive
And why you can't trust anyone but us
But then how can I begin to forgive her
So many years under bridges with dirty water
She was foolish and selfish
And cowardly if you ask me
I don't know where to begin
In all of my fifty odd years
I have been silently suffering
And adapting, perpetuating and enduring
Who are you, younger generation to tell me
That I have unresolved problems
Not many examples of fruits
Of this type of excruciating labor
How can you just throw words around
Like grieve and heal and mourn
I feel fine, we may not have been born
As awake as you were
It was much harder in those days
We had paper routes, uphill both ways
We went from school, to a job to a wife
To instant parenthood
I walked into his office
I felt so self-conscious on the couch
He was sitting down across from me
He was writing down his hypothesis, I don't know
I've got a loving supportive wife
Who doesn't know how involved she should get
You say his interjecting
Was him just calling me on my shit?
Just the other day, my sweet daughter
I was driving past 203
I walked up the stairs in my mind's eye
I remember how they would creak loudly
She was only responsive with a drink
He was only responsive by photo
I was only trying to be
The best big brother I could
I've walked sometimes confused
Sometimes ready to crack open wide
Sometimes indignant, sometimes raw
Can you imagine, I pay him seventy-five dollars an hour?
Sometimes it feels like highway robbery
And sometimes it's peanuts
I wish it could last a couple more hours
So here we both are battling similar demons
Not coincidentally
You seen getting beyond knowing it solely intellectually
You're not relinquishing your majesty
You are wise you are warm
You are courageous, you are big
And I love you more now
Than I ever have in my whole life
He died in the arms of his lover, how dare he?
Your mother never left the house
She never married anyone else
You took it upon yourself to console her
You reminded her so much of your father
So you were banished and you
Wonder why you're so hypersensitive
And why you can't trust anyone but us
But then how can I begin to forgive her
So many years under bridges with dirty water
She was foolish and selfish
And cowardly if you ask me
I don't know where to begin
In all of my fifty odd years
I have been silently suffering
And adapting, perpetuating and enduring
Who are you, younger generation to tell me
That I have unresolved problems
Not many examples of fruits
Of this type of excruciating labor
How can you just throw words around
Like grieve and heal and mourn
I feel fine, we may not have been born
As awake as you were
It was much harder in those days
We had paper routes, uphill both ways
We went from school, to a job to a wife
To instant parenthood
I walked into his office
I felt so self-conscious on the couch
He was sitting down across from me
He was writing down his hypothesis, I don't know
I've got a loving supportive wife
Who doesn't know how involved she should get
You say his interjecting
Was him just calling me on my shit?
Just the other day, my sweet daughter
I was driving past 203
I walked up the stairs in my mind's eye
I remember how they would creak loudly
She was only responsive with a drink
He was only responsive by photo
I was only trying to be
The best big brother I could
I've walked sometimes confused
Sometimes ready to crack open wide
Sometimes indignant, sometimes raw
Can you imagine, I pay him seventy-five dollars an hour?
Sometimes it feels like highway robbery
And sometimes it's peanuts
I wish it could last a couple more hours
So here we both are battling similar demons
Not coincidentally
You seen getting beyond knowing it solely intellectually
You're not relinquishing your majesty
You are wise you are warm
You are courageous, you are big
And I love you more now
Than I ever have in my whole life
Lyrics submitted by Lamia, edited by itakephotos
The Couch Lyrics as written by Alanis Nadine Morissette Glen Ballard
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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