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"
In space, the stars are no nearer
Just glitters like a morgue
And I dreamed I was a spaceman
Burned like a moth in a flame
And our world was so fucking gone
I'm not attached to your world
Nothing heals, nothing grows
I'm not attached to your world
Nothing heals, nothing grows
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
And hell was so cold
All the vases are so broken
And the roses tear our hands open
Mother Mary, miscarry
But we pray just like insects
And the world is so ugly now
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
Just glitters like a morgue
And I dreamed I was a spaceman
Burned like a moth in a flame
And our world was so fucking gone
I'm not attached to your world
Nothing heals, nothing grows
I'm not attached to your world
Nothing heals, nothing grows
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
And hell was so cold
All the vases are so broken
And the roses tear our hands open
Mother Mary, miscarry
But we pray just like insects
And the world is so ugly now
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
'Cause it's a great big white world
And we are drained of our colors
We used to love ourselves
We used to love one another
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
All my stitches itch
My prescription's low
I wish you were queen, just for today
In a world so white, what else could I say?
Lyrics submitted by piesupreme
Great Big White World Lyrics as written by Jeordie White Brian Hugh Warner
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The Night We Met
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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”
No Surprises
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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.
Punchline
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Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
The first verse seems like all the things he was yearning for in the beginning are not greater once he's close to them...being a spaceman now he burns up (out) and it wasn't as glittery as he thought stardom would be (or any place higher than the norm for the general public)
and as unsatisfactory as the star studded life is, he doesn't miss the lacking world he left behind, where all there is is pain and digression.
The corus... Everything is white...everything. so he's pointing out how monotonous people are, cities are all the same, everywhere is white (the default standard form). We don't know what love is anymore really, we hate ouselves trying to be better, we hate other people, not even giving them a chance...people don't even try to make new friends really anymore. He's in a state of discomfort and isn't being looked after by anyone. Wishing that this girl was queen... maybe she'll be able to fix everything wrong with this world... all he can do is wish and hope though...that's all he can say.
Hell froze over...so something that wasn't supposed to happen happened, wether he wanted it to or not. Thr rose a simbol of love or friendish is hurting him, the thing that held those friends is broken and they're all falling away. and the rest is his usual jesus mary part, but what's interesting about it is he's saying it the way it didn't happen, saying taht even if jesus wasn't born people would still be praying... like first nature... like a praying mantis does automatically.
and no matter which way you cut it, the world is ugly now, all the same, mindless, no evolution... ugly.