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"
The sigh of summer upon my return
Fifteen alike since I was here
Bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail
Snuffing the first morning rays
Weary from what might have been ages
Still calm with my mind at peace
Would I prosper or fall, drain the past
The lapse of the moment took it's turn
I was foul and tainted, devoid of faith
Wearing my death-mask at birth
The hands of God, decrepit and thin
Cold caress and then nothing
I was taken away from my plight
A treason bestowed to the crowd
Branded a jonah with fevered blood
Ungodly freak, defiler
Pale touch, writhing in the embers
Damp mud burning in my eyes
All the faces turned away
And all would sneer at my demise
Outcast with dogmas forged below
Seared and beaten, banished from where I was born
No mercy would help me on my way
In the pouring rain nothing is the same
Vows in ashes
I pledge myself to no-one
Seethed and spiteful
All shudder at the call of my name
If you'll bear with me
You'll fear of me
There is no forgiveness in these eyes
For any of you but one
Dispel the mist for now
Melinda is the reason why I've come
She is water drops over the pyre
A thistle in my hands
Stained and torn, aged and brown
Virtuous shell with kindred innocence
I awoke from the miasma
Passing swiftly through the moor
This is here, waters stir
And in the distance all that was lost
If you´ll bear with me
You´ll fear of me
You´d never leave me to
A fate with you
Fifteen alike since I was here
Bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail
Snuffing the first morning rays
Weary from what might have been ages
Still calm with my mind at peace
Would I prosper or fall, drain the past
The lapse of the moment took it's turn
I was foul and tainted, devoid of faith
Wearing my death-mask at birth
The hands of God, decrepit and thin
Cold caress and then nothing
I was taken away from my plight
A treason bestowed to the crowd
Branded a jonah with fevered blood
Ungodly freak, defiler
Pale touch, writhing in the embers
Damp mud burning in my eyes
All the faces turned away
And all would sneer at my demise
Outcast with dogmas forged below
Seared and beaten, banished from where I was born
No mercy would help me on my way
In the pouring rain nothing is the same
Vows in ashes
I pledge myself to no-one
Seethed and spiteful
All shudder at the call of my name
If you'll bear with me
You'll fear of me
There is no forgiveness in these eyes
For any of you but one
Dispel the mist for now
Melinda is the reason why I've come
She is water drops over the pyre
A thistle in my hands
Stained and torn, aged and brown
Virtuous shell with kindred innocence
I awoke from the miasma
Passing swiftly through the moor
This is here, waters stir
And in the distance all that was lost
If you´ll bear with me
You´ll fear of me
You´d never leave me to
A fate with you
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
By the way the "chapters" (songs) of this story are as follows:
1) The Moor 2) Godhead's Lament 3) Benighted 4) Moonlapse Vertigo 5) The Face of Melinda 6) Serenity Painted Death *7) White Cluster
Go to the tracks with the * in order to read my explination of the story.