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"
Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a slow torch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning
So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep
It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep
There's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Can you help me remember how to smile?
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded?
Life's mystery seems so faded
I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
Everything seems cut and dry
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
A little out of touch, little insane
It's just easier than dealing with the pain
Runaway train never goin' back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train tearin' up the track
Runaway train burnin' in my veins
Runaway but it always seems the same
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a slow torch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning
So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep
It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep
There's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Can you help me remember how to smile?
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded?
Life's mystery seems so faded
I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
Everything seems cut and dry
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
A little out of touch, little insane
It's just easier than dealing with the pain
Runaway train never goin' back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train tearin' up the track
Runaway train burnin' in my veins
Runaway but it always seems the same
Lyrics submitted by brokenheartkit
Runaway Train Lyrics as written by David Pirner
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Sad factoid that I just read at Wikipedia: while the video found a lot of children in a number of countries, many of the outcomes often weren't good. Some runaways were returned to abusive or otherwise unhealthy home situations, several were eventually found after being killed. I wish the video made it clearer that MOST kidnappers, just like most child-molesters/killers, are closely related or a friend of the family.
I think that most parents & then-teens in my area that saw the video back in the day were uncomfortably reminded of two horrible tragedies that happened not long before hand. First there was 3 little sisters that were found at the city dumps with their throats slashed by their own father, and months of everyone wondering how the critically injured survivor would do... Then, not long before the video, Polly Klaas was kidnapped from her own 13th birthday party sleepover -- it seemed to take forever before they finally discovered she'd been murdered. Even though I didn't know any of the girls and was in my mid-teens, I remember crying at the video, having learned what really happened to most "missing" kids.
Anyway... The songwriter/singer has said bluntly that it's not about missing kids -- it IS about severe depression, evidently in his case after a loved one died suddenly.
I don't think that it has to involve drugs, either. I've had major depressive disorder before, and when it's bad enough, illegal drugs aren't needed to have the feelings he describes. People with depression do all kinds of things on an obsessive scale to escape -- having s*x with anyone willing, playing video games all day, sleeping too much, etc. -- and at some point they do know that it's "insane" to the point of self-destructive, but the pain is so intense that it's the only way to avoid suicide. They can also become almost manic with energy or rage, and it causes an electric, vibrating sensation that really is kind of like "fire in my veins".
But every time they come back out of the obsession or fake-manic state, they find the depression & all of the things it has made them hate about their life "always stays the same". They start to see that it's getting harder and harder to actually escape it -- and that their behavior has been "tearing up the tracks" to return to their old life, just as the depression itself has done to their personality. They'll try to rely on a loved one, but then be too easily hurt/angered by everything, so the person seems like a blowtorch rather than either the lock-opener or candle lighting the darkness.
I could go on, but won't. ;) I'll just share, to end on an upbeat note, that this song helps me focus when working on a few urban fantasy novellas I've been writing for ages, as it captures the secret feelings the protagonists 'inherited' from my years as an avoidant, neglected/mistreated non-angsty teenager. Strange how a sad song or tale can bring joy to a person...
@XyzzyMagicat What happens next?