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"
Imagine my hands are clean
I am revitalized by things unseen
I begin a dialogue with the road
Toothless, hopeful, about to explode
How could I have ever been so lucky
To wake up looking in her face
And see the flowers she put â??round the room
Brightening an otherwise crumbling place
She told me that Jesus loves me
But I never knew who Jesus was
Some kid somewhere fucked up
Well isn't this what a savior does?
Don't cry
Don't feel
Don't die
Because death is not real
It's good
It's yours
And it should come when things have run their course
I wanted her melted up inside me
All the tears and the smiles shed for me
She'd disappear to the world around me
Everything to be a powerful memory
(so I could carry all that we'd been with me)
So I brought her to the swamp she loved so well
Where I gently placed her in it
I brought her soul to ease with kisses
And I said to her as I's about to begin it
Don't cry
Don't feel
You won't die
Because I don't think death's real
It's good
It's mine
And it should be
At your heels all of the time
And she said:
â??and where's the sky for me now? its good that she sings
And who will take it down? the freedom it brings
And drape it all around me her voice is my very
Head
Every cloud and Cosmo for a gown?â??
I'm a good kid
Old style
A happy child
And I'm never going to have to do that again
But if I want to, I can
Don't cry
Don't feel
Don't die
Because death is not real
It's good
It's ours
Like the sun
Like the worms
Like the wind
Like the flowers
I am revitalized by things unseen
I begin a dialogue with the road
Toothless, hopeful, about to explode
How could I have ever been so lucky
To wake up looking in her face
And see the flowers she put â??round the room
Brightening an otherwise crumbling place
She told me that Jesus loves me
But I never knew who Jesus was
Some kid somewhere fucked up
Well isn't this what a savior does?
Don't cry
Don't feel
Don't die
Because death is not real
It's good
It's yours
And it should come when things have run their course
I wanted her melted up inside me
All the tears and the smiles shed for me
She'd disappear to the world around me
Everything to be a powerful memory
(so I could carry all that we'd been with me)
So I brought her to the swamp she loved so well
Where I gently placed her in it
I brought her soul to ease with kisses
And I said to her as I's about to begin it
Don't cry
Don't feel
You won't die
Because I don't think death's real
It's good
It's mine
And it should be
At your heels all of the time
And she said:
â??and where's the sky for me now? its good that she sings
And who will take it down? the freedom it brings
And drape it all around me her voice is my very
Head
Every cloud and Cosmo for a gown?â??
I'm a good kid
Old style
A happy child
And I'm never going to have to do that again
But if I want to, I can
Don't cry
Don't feel
Don't die
Because death is not real
It's good
It's ours
Like the sun
Like the worms
Like the wind
Like the flowers
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yeah, I didn't really think about it before but a lot of tweaker's songs are about loss. And yes, I think it is about someone who killed a loved one (perhaps out of mercy) and now regrets it so much he's in denial.
Look at me, being all these years late. A lot of Will Oldham songs in general are the same. If you, dear reader, have not checked out other Will Oldham projects, you should really hop-to and buy Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "I See a Darkness". That entire album is as gut-punchingly beautiful as this song.<br /> <br /> Anyway, I agree. There seems to be death, denial, and reverence. But he certainly isn't denying that he can very easily do it again in the future. Could be a serial killer's first victim... the first is often held in high, haunting regard, anyway.