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"
Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Storm, in the morning light
I feel, no more can I say
Frozen to myself
I got nobody on my side
And surely that ain't right
And surely that ain't right
Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Storm, in the morning light
I feel, no more can I say
Frozen to myself
I got nobody on my side
And surely that ain't right
And surely that ain't right
Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Actually (and I'm pretty sure that this is the accurate meaning) I think the song is about that moment in your life when you suddenly realize life isn't peaches and cream like you were told all your life. Usually around 18-22 years old, your quarter-life crisis. You struggle to adpat to the adult world and find yourself and find your way in life, this can include spirituality. Sturggle to be a good person and struggle to cope with the world's woes.......etc.
i agree.
Well said, drietovenares. I can totally relate to that feeling right now and I'm glad there's a song out there that represents that moment.
Actuate in what sense?
In the Live version of this on the Roseland CD (which isn't actually recorded at Roseland btw), the quiver in Beth Gibbon's voice during the second "Ohh, can't anybody see" may be the single most beautiful word I have ever heard sung, without exaggeration. seriously.
It just sends chills up my arm every damn time, nearly 10 years on.
That's perfectly what I feel.
@shnugen17 - Hah ! I told a friend essentially the exact same thing after my first listen to the album... Those two lines are so intense... Regardless, of what they mean ;-)
In my opinion, it's you being different from everyone else, being looked down upon, and having no one who agrees with what you are doing. You look for help, theres no one there. Thinking of alternatives, all you can come up with is to continue to try. After a while, and much consideration, you start to doubt what you are, and what makes you individual. So all in all, it's about rejection of who you are and no one wanting anything to do with who you are, and what you do.
To me this song is about loosing a sense of purpose, things feeling wrong and not understanding why, You turn to a freind for help help but people won't listen they're too selfish to even try and understand. They can't see whats going on and further more don't care.
i really think is about how difficult is find one person to share the life with. How alone we are. Everybody. Alone because we are always fighting in our relationships, always protecting ourselves against nothing. Everyday, many times a day, wiht our partner. She's alone because of this, and she's really tired and missing a different and unachievable way of live. (I'm spanish, sorry for my english)
your english is very good. very interesting interpretation, I did not think of that at all but it fits.
To me, this song is about apathy and how people today are losing touch with their spirituality. This loss of spirit conicides with the increasing amount of commercialism in the western world and the growing gap between first world and third world countires.
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact..."
where is this quote from?
fight club
This song has to do with trying to be and do what the "norm" is. It reminds me of when I came to the conclusion I am gay.
To me, it represents a losing battle within yourself for happiness/fulfillment...manifesting itself as a war with the outside world...in a search for self-fulfillment through others/things...an unfilled void..."I've got nobody on my side and surely that ain't right". I think as you grow older, past college, 20's ...you realize life is a useless struggle-a war between your true self and society's expectations ( work, family, etc)...you have a war to fight...never find your way...going through life alone - because of the addiction to material things and other people...a useless means to true love and happiness...because you don't fit in just being yourself...and the struggle to fit in is the reason that you never found your way...now that it is too late because you "fit in"...how can it feel this wrong?
it sounds like beth is singing about waking up and realizing that she has always done--and this same something is something that her society practices--is wrong. it seems to her like she is the only person that realizes it. (can't anybody see) for example: this is how a nazi would feel upon realizing that the nazis are committing a horrible evil. this is how a white southerner in the mid 1900's would feel upon realizing that that racial injustice is wrong. etc. etc. she's trying to wake society up to fight this wrong (we've got a war to fight) but at the same time it feels strange to her that something she has always practiced and never questioned--is now wrong in her own eyes. (from this moment, how can it feel this wrong)
@mriuria I agree. Albert Einstein called this phase of history :The predatory phase of economics. Money supercedes human dignity in this era. Money suopercedes appreciation of life on earth (before we even undertand how all of the ecosystems work).
@mriuria I agree. Albert Einstein called this phase of history :The predatory phase of economics. Money supercedes human dignity in this era. Money suopercedes appreciation of life on earth (before we even undertand how all of the ecosystems work).
@mriuria I agree. Albert Einstein called this phase of history :The predatory phase of economics. Money supercedes human dignity in this era. Money suopercedes appreciation of life on earth (before we even undertand how all of the ecosystems work).