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"
The concrete broke your fall
To hear you speak of it
I'd have done anything
I would do anything
I feel like a cartoon brick wall
To hear you speak of it
You've been so sad
It makes me worry
Why not smile?
You've been sad for a while
Why not smile?
I would do anything
To hear you speak of it
Why not smile?
You've been sad for a while
You've been sad for a while
To hear you speak of it
I'd have done anything
I would do anything
I feel like a cartoon brick wall
To hear you speak of it
You've been so sad
It makes me worry
Why not smile?
You've been sad for a while
Why not smile?
I would do anything
To hear you speak of it
Why not smile?
You've been sad for a while
You've been sad for a while
Lyrics submitted by xpankfrisst
Why Not Smile Lyrics as written by Michael Mills Peter Buck
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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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”
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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this song gives me shivers everytime i hear it. i wish so much that someone (and i have someone very specific in mind here) knew enough to say any of these things to me at the time when i most needed to hear them said.
Beautiful song.
this is a great little song, and pretty straightforward in its message for R.E.M. I love it, it's gorgeous
about seeing someone in a depression, hitting rock bottom (the concrete broke your fall)
Something which breaks your fall is somthing which makes it softer. If the thing which breaks your fall is concrete, imagine how much harder you fall would have been without it?
Simply a genius lyric.
Feels very much like a sequel to "Let Me In," Stipe's reflection in the wake of Kurt Cobain's death (and arguably the most brilliant song on "Monster").
This month, we lost another very good person, David Foster Wallace, to suicide, and it truly sucks. I wish this song could have been there for him.
The concrete broke your fall
such an amazing line oh my gosh, I just love how he sings this song. its just so beautiful and has so much meaning. By the way he sings it he just sounds so innocent and honest i just love it its one of my favouites by r.e.m
x
To paraphrase Michael Stipe: The protagonist of this song is well-meaning but overly naive in their attitude towards a friend who's suffering from a serious issue such as mental illness/depression/drug addiction.
The lyrics are like the equivalent of a person saying "turn that frown upside down" to somebody in the midst of a serious crisis and expecting such a trite platitude to "fix" the person's problem.
The brilliance of this song is that the protagonist's (ultimately) empty message hides behind a sweet melody and a veneer of kindness and concern.
This song is about a friend's or relative or parent's suicide.
"The concrete broke [his] fall".
Mike did not cope with this person's depression: Mike "[had] done anything", "would do anything", actually "would have done anything" in order "to hear [him] speak a verse".
He had been "sad for a while". So, Mike is inviting him to cheer up, to approach life another way. That's why he's saying "Why not smile?!" (instead of getting prey to depression and committing suicide, eventually).
Great song. Yet so sad.
I don't think 4 min does this song justice. The mood created by REM ...the opening shock, the emptiness, deep sadness, emergence and ultimately hope...I wish the instrumental part of the song was longer. Buck's guitars create the beauty, then the tension and Mills' piano determinedly lifts it up. Great songwriting.