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"
Birds fly into my windshield
Thoughts fall from my thoughts
This good luck charm hanging off my arm
Was left here by the police
Words fall out of my pockets
And cats dance under my feet
This colorful spell under which I live
Protects me from all I write
And the microscope reveals the scope
Of my very best intentions (best intentions)
Yes, the tiny light shines twice as bright
On the only nice part of me
Birds fly into my windshield
Thoughts fall from my thoughts
This good luck charm hanging off my arm
Was left here by the police
And the microscope reveals the scope
Of my very best intentions (best intentions)
Oh yes the tiny light shines twice as bright
On the only nice part of me
Thoughts fall from my thoughts
This good luck charm hanging off my arm
Was left here by the police
Words fall out of my pockets
And cats dance under my feet
This colorful spell under which I live
Protects me from all I write
And the microscope reveals the scope
Of my very best intentions (best intentions)
Yes, the tiny light shines twice as bright
On the only nice part of me
Birds fly into my windshield
Thoughts fall from my thoughts
This good luck charm hanging off my arm
Was left here by the police
And the microscope reveals the scope
Of my very best intentions (best intentions)
Oh yes the tiny light shines twice as bright
On the only nice part of me
Lyrics submitted by qshapadooy
Birds Fly Lyrics as written by John Linnell John Flansburgh
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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ah, i forgot: "words fall out from my pockets" either a cat caught this man's tongue, or more likely, he rambles randomly with poor excuses and alibies under the police investigation. the cats dancing under his feet may be the police questioning him or investigating the situation in depth. (police man's act to investigate = cat's act of being curious) "this colorful spell under which I live protects me from all i write." its fitting that this is in the same verse as "words fall out of my pockets". perhaps the narrator realizes his mistakes of saying too much and now he is using the colorful spell which protects him- the fifth amendmen.