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 picture's far too big to look at, kid
Your eyes won't open wide enough
And you're constantly surrounded by the swirling stream
Of what is and what was
Well, we all made our predictions but the truth still isn't out
But if you wanna see the future, go stare into a cloud
And keep trying to find your way out of that maze of memories
It all sorta looks familiar
Until you get up close and then it's different, clearly
But each time you turn a corner, you're
You're right back where you were
And your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear
Well, is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?
An avalanche of opinions, like the one that fell that I'm now underneath
It was my voice that moved the first rock, and I would do it all again
So I mean, it's cool if you keep quiet, but I like singing
So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming
And feeling so very lucky
And there is nothing I know, except this lifetime is one moment
And wishing will just leave me empty
So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light
No, it will greet you every morning
And it will make you more aware with its absence at night
When you're wrapped up in your blankets, babe, that comfortable cocoon
But I've seen the day of your awakening, boy, and it's coming soon
So go ahead and lose yourself in liquor
And you can praise the clouded mind
But it isn't what you're thinking
No, it's the course of history, your position in line
You're just a piece of the puzzle, so
I think you'd better find your place
And don't go blaming your knowledge on some fruit you ate
'Cause there's been a great deal of discussion, yes
About the properties of man
Animal or Angel? You were carved from bone, but your heart, it's just sand
And the wind is gonna scatter it and cover everything with love
So if it makes you happy, then keep kneeling, mama, but I'm standing up
Because this veil, it has been lifted, yes
My eyes are wet with clarity
I've been a witness to such wonders
Oh, I've searched for them all across this country
But I think I'll be returning now
To the town where I was born
And I understand you must keep movin', friend
But I'm headed home
Yeah, I'm gonna follow the road
And let the scenery sweeping by easily enter my body
And I'll send you all this message in code
Under ground, over mountains, through forests and deserts and cities
Ah, ah, ah, all across electric wire, it's a baited line
Yeah, the hook's in deep, boys, theres no more time
So you can struggle in the water, be too stubborn to die
Or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky
Your eyes won't open wide enough
And you're constantly surrounded by the swirling stream
Of what is and what was
Well, we all made our predictions but the truth still isn't out
But if you wanna see the future, go stare into a cloud
And keep trying to find your way out of that maze of memories
It all sorta looks familiar
Until you get up close and then it's different, clearly
But each time you turn a corner, you're
You're right back where you were
And your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear
Well, is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?
An avalanche of opinions, like the one that fell that I'm now underneath
It was my voice that moved the first rock, and I would do it all again
So I mean, it's cool if you keep quiet, but I like singing
So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming
And feeling so very lucky
And there is nothing I know, except this lifetime is one moment
And wishing will just leave me empty
So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light
No, it will greet you every morning
And it will make you more aware with its absence at night
When you're wrapped up in your blankets, babe, that comfortable cocoon
But I've seen the day of your awakening, boy, and it's coming soon
So go ahead and lose yourself in liquor
And you can praise the clouded mind
But it isn't what you're thinking
No, it's the course of history, your position in line
You're just a piece of the puzzle, so
I think you'd better find your place
And don't go blaming your knowledge on some fruit you ate
'Cause there's been a great deal of discussion, yes
About the properties of man
Animal or Angel? You were carved from bone, but your heart, it's just sand
And the wind is gonna scatter it and cover everything with love
So if it makes you happy, then keep kneeling, mama, but I'm standing up
Because this veil, it has been lifted, yes
My eyes are wet with clarity
I've been a witness to such wonders
Oh, I've searched for them all across this country
But I think I'll be returning now
To the town where I was born
And I understand you must keep movin', friend
But I'm headed home
Yeah, I'm gonna follow the road
And let the scenery sweeping by easily enter my body
And I'll send you all this message in code
Under ground, over mountains, through forests and deserts and cities
Ah, ah, ah, all across electric wire, it's a baited line
Yeah, the hook's in deep, boys, theres no more time
So you can struggle in the water, be too stubborn to die
Or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky
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"All across electric wire, it's a baited line, yeah the hook's in deep, boys, there's no more time So you can struggle in the water, be too stubborn to die Or you can just let go and be lifted to the sky"
listened to this song like 1,000 times before I realized the imagery, about a fish in the water being lifted to the sky, it's caught, and letting go, and being lifted to the sky or a boat for that matter.
To me this is about understanding that the world is something that can't be understood, but something you can try to stand up and live in. And in the end you have to let go, anyway.
it goes without saying, it's brillant.
I hate how most people are turned off by this song.. do to it's length, unusual commentary, and lack of structure. But to get the "big picture" those things are necessary. This song helped me through a very rough time.. i lived by the "it was my voice that moved the first rock..and I would do it all again". I disagree with the comment made that this song is about Conor not worshipping a God..he does say "or you can just let go and be lifted to the sky" sky aka heaven... there is a belief in a God. Maybe he's just not very conservative.
actually, conor is very outspoken against religion, read this line from "four winds"<br /> <br /> "The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an is mute<br /> If you burned them all together you'd be close to the truth"<br /> <br />
Also the reference to being lifted into the sky goes with the imagery. At the end of the song he is saying that you can struggle with life or just go with the flow, using the metaphor of a fish being pulled out of the water and into the sky.<br /> Sorry you probably knew that and I'm just being annoying...
This is an answer to the question charibari presented.. this song is (stated before)about how we will never truley understand our lives, or ourselves for that matter. We're all going to die eventually and our spirits are going to end up in the same place no matter how far we succeed in life. So my question to all of you is: why do we still try when we know this is true?
WHy do we continue to do so much when all we do will be forgotten when the world ends?
this song is about how looking out through our own eyes at the world we can never see the truth, we keep thinking we can, we believe in things- religion, theories, - actually believe in them, although we'll never prove ourselves right. The world encourages us to make sense of the world, we keep thinking we have to. We think too much and are as such too intelligent for this planet, (but also not intelligent enough to be happy), and we suffer so much from our thinking,but really if we stopped thinking, we'd live and die anyway just like our grandfathers and our great great great grandfathers and everyone else in the history of the world. He finished to say he discovered the best thing to do is to do what's normal, because once you're dead no one cares if you spent hours awake scared of the thoughts in your head and so long unhappy. he says he's gonna go home to omaha, settle down, marry, have kids grow old and die, because he has found he cannot control his future, the world around him, anything. he is just a piece in the puzzle - his father's son, his son's father."Your position in line". The symbol of the fish at the end is to say that you can put off giving in to mortal life until your death, but the truth prevails and your gonna die, not reincarnate or go to heaven, just die. and thats the end of you.
they got it now robbie
i love this song. the new CD is great.
yes, it takes a while to catch that last image. connor's saying, you listen to my music, i'm the fisherman, death is success.
I like the beginning with jenny lewis and blake sennett of rilo kiley talking. this song, the lyrics are great. and I love at the end where it just cuts him off yelling SKY-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y
i didnt know that was them at the beginning. but that makes it even better. Rilo Kiley is good.
i will send this message in code, underground through forests and deserts and cities... who else besides conor would do that for you?
I disagree. Conor's "horrible shaking voice" makes the song as great as it is.