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"
In the year of '39, assembled here the volunteers
In the days when lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
The sweetest sight ever seen
And the night followed day
And the story tellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas
Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew
In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey, little darling, we'll away
But my love, this cannot be
Oh, so many years have gone though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes, from your eyes, cry to me
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
Write your letters in the sand for the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand
For my life
Still ahead
Pity me
In the days when lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
The sweetest sight ever seen
And the night followed day
And the story tellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas
Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew
In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey, little darling, we'll away
But my love, this cannot be
Oh, so many years have gone though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes, from your eyes, cry to me
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
Write your letters in the sand for the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand
For my life
Still ahead
Pity me
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This is a GREAT song! At first you think it's a song about the Pilgrims sailing out for the New World, which the first verse captures the spirit of very nicely. In the second verse you realize this must have been a Strarship of sorts. "For so many years have gone, but I'm older but a year." The Volunteers have returned to Earth after a significant time has passed (whether this is because of cryogenics or Einstein's relativity is beside the point). Now the singer realizes all he has loved has passed away, and he is still there.
I love the line "In the land that our grandchildren knew."