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"
Atlanta's a distant memory
Montgomery a recent birth
And Tulsa burns on the desert floor
Like a signal fire
I got Willie on the radio
A dozen things on my mind
And number one is fleshing out
These dreams of mine
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
In Nashville there is a lighter
In a case for all to see
It speaks of dreams and heartaches
Left unsung
And in the corner stands a guitar and
Lonesome words scrawled in a drunken hand
I don't travel past, travel hard before
And I'm beginning to understand
That I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
They say that I am crazy
My life wasting on this road
That time will find my dreams
Scared or dead and cold
But I heard there is a light
Drawing me to reach an end
And when I reach there, I'll turn back
And you and I can begin again
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But I wouldn't trade all your golden tomorrows
For one hour of this night
Atlanta's a distant memory
Montgomery a recent birth
And Tulsa burns on the desert floor
Like a signal fire
Montgomery a recent birth
And Tulsa burns on the desert floor
Like a signal fire
I got Willie on the radio
A dozen things on my mind
And number one is fleshing out
These dreams of mine
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
In Nashville there is a lighter
In a case for all to see
It speaks of dreams and heartaches
Left unsung
And in the corner stands a guitar and
Lonesome words scrawled in a drunken hand
I don't travel past, travel hard before
And I'm beginning to understand
That I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
They say that I am crazy
My life wasting on this road
That time will find my dreams
Scared or dead and cold
But I heard there is a light
Drawing me to reach an end
And when I reach there, I'll turn back
And you and I can begin again
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms
To fall into tonight
I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line
Before I sleep
But I wouldn't trade all your golden tomorrows
For one hour of this night
Atlanta's a distant memory
Montgomery a recent birth
And Tulsa burns on the desert floor
Like a signal fire
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