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"
Burn it down
Pad the circles 'round your life
To capture all the sides you sight
Magic tricks where skeptics sink
The ice is thin, stay off the lake
Waiting for a clock to punch
Wish I could breathe and stop for lunch
If I stop to count the leaves on one of these here trees
Not sure that I know what's pure
Born to kill the insecure
Some respect, some resent, some remain from start to end
Wear my heart on my short sleeves
I'm stuck out here, I lost my keys
From the roof I watch the street
And pray for those that's caught beneath
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
I dunno what I have to left
To give other than truth and breath
Angel when she shuts her eyes
Like we will leave to my demise
Between my time is short
About to start my last resort
Wake me up when it's time to make babies
Talkin' planet earthquakes
Tied the laces, touch the ground
Let emotions ruptured now
As long as I know right from wrong, I'll be OK I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
I want to lift every yellow brick
I never felt pressure to have to justify my selfishness
At least not to your and yours
Maybe just my friends and fellowships
As long as the mood is somehow linked to my enhanced development
I swear they'll understand!
There's a storm outside my tenement
Beats upon my windows with Mother Nature's adrenaline
I guess that's why my homey Blockhead stays glued to the television
Now I look less intelligent
'Cause I'm the one that tried to bear the elements and lost
Well it's warm by the filament
Huddled up close in the company of all my relatives
Stories lash like coffee and honest-to-God sentiment
Cocooned in the unified efforts to all get settled in
Away from where the rain pours!
Well count your delegates
Weed out the bums who practice migration under the elegant
Of course I realize to fill the ring, procedure's delicate
But lead devils inside to collide with your over-zealousness
And fall to rock bottom
Spot em with their carelessness
The urge could burst to turn even those hazardous to militant
You can't even have half of free second
The beat comes gelatin
You gotta aim, fire and the spider be model veteran
Buried in merit badges
I'm stuck in the center and could care less
About the eye of the storm and its monstrous measurements
I got a defense that I call coolin' with my brethren
Sometimes I get wet
But it's better than risking life and limb to me, don't you agree?
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
If you want to push, than I'm ready to push
But if you pulling while I'm pushing
Then why did you ask me to push?
If you want to push, than I'm ready to push
But if you pulling while I'm pushing
Then why did you ask me to push?
Pad the circles 'round your life
To capture all the sides you sight
Magic tricks where skeptics sink
The ice is thin, stay off the lake
Waiting for a clock to punch
Wish I could breathe and stop for lunch
If I stop to count the leaves on one of these here trees
Not sure that I know what's pure
Born to kill the insecure
Some respect, some resent, some remain from start to end
Wear my heart on my short sleeves
I'm stuck out here, I lost my keys
From the roof I watch the street
And pray for those that's caught beneath
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
I dunno what I have to left
To give other than truth and breath
Angel when she shuts her eyes
Like we will leave to my demise
Between my time is short
About to start my last resort
Wake me up when it's time to make babies
Talkin' planet earthquakes
Tied the laces, touch the ground
Let emotions ruptured now
As long as I know right from wrong, I'll be OK I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
I want to lift every yellow brick
I never felt pressure to have to justify my selfishness
At least not to your and yours
Maybe just my friends and fellowships
As long as the mood is somehow linked to my enhanced development
I swear they'll understand!
There's a storm outside my tenement
Beats upon my windows with Mother Nature's adrenaline
I guess that's why my homey Blockhead stays glued to the television
Now I look less intelligent
'Cause I'm the one that tried to bear the elements and lost
Well it's warm by the filament
Huddled up close in the company of all my relatives
Stories lash like coffee and honest-to-God sentiment
Cocooned in the unified efforts to all get settled in
Away from where the rain pours!
Well count your delegates
Weed out the bums who practice migration under the elegant
Of course I realize to fill the ring, procedure's delicate
But lead devils inside to collide with your over-zealousness
And fall to rock bottom
Spot em with their carelessness
The urge could burst to turn even those hazardous to militant
You can't even have half of free second
The beat comes gelatin
You gotta aim, fire and the spider be model veteran
Buried in merit badges
I'm stuck in the center and could care less
About the eye of the storm and its monstrous measurements
I got a defense that I call coolin' with my brethren
Sometimes I get wet
But it's better than risking life and limb to me, don't you agree?
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs
If you want to push, than I'm ready to push
But if you pulling while I'm pushing
Then why did you ask me to push?
If you want to push, than I'm ready to push
But if you pulling while I'm pushing
Then why did you ask me to push?
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Gentle Hour
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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,
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Cool Song, Always Remindes Me not to worry about it, ill B ok!!
really?