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"
So we got married in Venice in June
So what?
We circled the Earth in a hot air balloon
So what?
And the rest of our lives
Is one long honeymoon
Well, that doesn't mean we're in love
If you really loved me
You'd buy me a beautiful pearl
But you've already bought me
All of the pearls in the world
So there's one thing I crave
When my days become ho-hum and blah
I want a zebra
We've got so many tchotchkes
We've pratically emptied the Louvre
In most of our palaces
There's hardly room to manoeuvre
I shan't go to Balie today
I must stay home and Hoovre
Up the gold dust
That doesn't mean we're in love
If you really loved me
You'd buy me the Great Pyramid
Oh, I'm so forgetful, you already did
But there's one think I need
If you won't think I'm greedy, my deah
Another zebra
Zelda looks lonely, I want a zebra
So what?
We circled the Earth in a hot air balloon
So what?
And the rest of our lives
Is one long honeymoon
Well, that doesn't mean we're in love
If you really loved me
You'd buy me a beautiful pearl
But you've already bought me
All of the pearls in the world
So there's one thing I crave
When my days become ho-hum and blah
I want a zebra
We've got so many tchotchkes
We've pratically emptied the Louvre
In most of our palaces
There's hardly room to manoeuvre
I shan't go to Balie today
I must stay home and Hoovre
Up the gold dust
That doesn't mean we're in love
If you really loved me
You'd buy me the Great Pyramid
Oh, I'm so forgetful, you already did
But there's one think I need
If you won't think I'm greedy, my deah
Another zebra
Zelda looks lonely, I want a zebra
Lyrics submitted by Anne Arbour
Zebra Lyrics as written by
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I love this little song, definitely one of my favorites off 69LS.
I don't know if the meaning is obvious, but since no one else has commented, I'll offer my interpretation. It seems the song is basically about how "money doesn't bring you happiness". You can have all the material things in the world, all the pearls, the Great Pyramid, the treasures in Louvre (so that they all just seem like "tchotchkes" to you), but you can't stop wanting always more.
The narrator in the song has worked her way all the way from A to Z, through all the possible things you can own, and now she wants a zebra. But when she has that one zebra, not even that is enough; she must have another.