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"
I've waited hours for this
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
Just try to see in the dark
Just try to make it work
To feel the fear before you're here
I make the shapes come much too close
I pull my eyes out
Hold my breath and wait until I shake
But if I had your faith
Then I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
I've waited hours for this
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
But if I had your face
Then I could make it safe and clean
Oh, if only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
Just try to see in the dark
Just try to make it work
To feel the fear before you're here
I make the shapes come much too close
I pull my eyes out
Hold my breath and wait until I shake
But if I had your faith
Then I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
I've waited hours for this
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
But if I had your face
Then I could make it safe and clean
Oh, if only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
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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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i love this song. i found a quote about what he thinks about the song:
'it's like the end of the day where you feel nothing has been achieved and you're in a hurry to get the day over with so you can start the next one. You tell yourself you're going to do lots of positive things. But the next day is just like the one before. Sometimes it goes on for weeks.'
I came here just to post this. People have some very creative, odd interpretations of this song--which are fine, but not what the song is intended to be about.<br /> <br /> To add to this, here's what Robert had to say about the phrase "the head on the door" before the album was released:<br /> <br /> "It was when I was little. Before I was going to get ill, I always used to see this horrible grinning man who'd appear on top of the bedroom door and laugh. It was like at both ends of a telescope at the same time- really near but when I tried to push it off, it'd be really far away. The last time I had it was when I was 15 and ill with glandular fever. Until, that is, for some reason, a couple of months ago I had a dream about it again and woke up sweating. I thought I was going to be ill but I wasn't."