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"
Naked a sin
An army towel, covering my belly
Some of us weep, some of us howl
Knees turn to jelly, but Next! Next!
I was just a child
A hundred like me
I followed a naked body
A naked body followed me, Next! Next!
I was just a child when my innocence was lost
In a mobile army whorehouse
A gift of the army, free of cost. Next! Next! Next!
Me, I really would have liked a little bit of tenderness
Maybe a word, maybe a smile, maybe some happiness, but Next! Next!
Oh, it was not so tragic
and heaven did not fall
But how much at that time
I hated being there at all, Next! Next!
I still recall the brothel trucks, the flying flags
The queer lieutenant slapped our arses
He's thinking we are fags. Next! Next! Next!
I swear on the wet head of my
First case of gonorrhea
It is his ugly voice that I forever fear, Next! Next!
A voice that stinks of whiskey, corpses and of mud
The voice of nations
The thick voice of blood, Next! Next!
Since then each woman I have taken into bed
They seem to lie in my arms
And they whisper in my head, Next! Next!
Oh, the naked and the dead
Could hold each others hands
As they watch me dream at night
In a dream that nobody understands
And though I am not dreaming in a voice grown dry 'n' hollow
I stand on endless naked lines of the following and the followed
The Next! Next!
One day I'll cut my legs off
I'll burn myself alive
I'll do anything to get out of life, to survive
Not ever to be next, Next! Next!
Not ever to be next, not ever
An army towel, covering my belly
Some of us weep, some of us howl
Knees turn to jelly, but Next! Next!
I was just a child
A hundred like me
I followed a naked body
A naked body followed me, Next! Next!
I was just a child when my innocence was lost
In a mobile army whorehouse
A gift of the army, free of cost. Next! Next! Next!
Me, I really would have liked a little bit of tenderness
Maybe a word, maybe a smile, maybe some happiness, but Next! Next!
Oh, it was not so tragic
and heaven did not fall
But how much at that time
I hated being there at all, Next! Next!
I still recall the brothel trucks, the flying flags
The queer lieutenant slapped our arses
He's thinking we are fags. Next! Next! Next!
I swear on the wet head of my
First case of gonorrhea
It is his ugly voice that I forever fear, Next! Next!
A voice that stinks of whiskey, corpses and of mud
The voice of nations
The thick voice of blood, Next! Next!
Since then each woman I have taken into bed
They seem to lie in my arms
And they whisper in my head, Next! Next!
Oh, the naked and the dead
Could hold each others hands
As they watch me dream at night
In a dream that nobody understands
And though I am not dreaming in a voice grown dry 'n' hollow
I stand on endless naked lines of the following and the followed
The Next! Next!
One day I'll cut my legs off
I'll burn myself alive
I'll do anything to get out of life, to survive
Not ever to be next, Next! Next!
Not ever to be next, not ever
Lyrics submitted by nicole, edited by nosilverbird
Next Lyrics as written by Jacques Roman Brel Eric Blau
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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