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"
A song I dedicate unto those who share my need
To give their all, and should they fall strive on til they succeed.
Though my belly aches with hunger, weary limbs tremble and shiver
I'd rather go where waters flow, no well beside the river.
It's spur has driven some to Hell on an unbridled desire
No pain, no gain, the strongest chain's forged in the hottest fire
I pity you, who's eyes so blue have never known ambition
Yet can spit your judgment at me like some crazed, despotic queen
This dull existence merely half-life, (a glazed comatose condition)
Too scary to try, so born to die sat at your sewing machine
Discontentedly accepting all the world's prepared to give her
It's fate that she stagnates just like a well beside the river
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
So little man with such big plans to stand upon the stage,
Why do you squabble in the dirt, you should be reaching for a star?
By far the greatest gift that I can give on making the front page,
It is: instead of punching faces why not practice your guitar.
More beauty has been composed than jealousy can tear and sliver.
Whilst troubled waters bubble, you're a well beside the river
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
There's a dirty job I've done for all my life without
Time-off called being me.
Though the hours are long and my pay is poor, I can't resign it's
All I'm qualified to be!
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
Though my belly aches with hunger, weary limbs tremble and shiver,
I'd rather go where waters flow, no well beside the river.
To give their all, and should they fall strive on til they succeed.
Though my belly aches with hunger, weary limbs tremble and shiver
I'd rather go where waters flow, no well beside the river.
It's spur has driven some to Hell on an unbridled desire
No pain, no gain, the strongest chain's forged in the hottest fire
I pity you, who's eyes so blue have never known ambition
Yet can spit your judgment at me like some crazed, despotic queen
This dull existence merely half-life, (a glazed comatose condition)
Too scary to try, so born to die sat at your sewing machine
Discontentedly accepting all the world's prepared to give her
It's fate that she stagnates just like a well beside the river
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
So little man with such big plans to stand upon the stage,
Why do you squabble in the dirt, you should be reaching for a star?
By far the greatest gift that I can give on making the front page,
It is: instead of punching faces why not practice your guitar.
More beauty has been composed than jealousy can tear and sliver.
Whilst troubled waters bubble, you're a well beside the river
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
There's a dirty job I've done for all my life without
Time-off called being me.
Though the hours are long and my pay is poor, I can't resign it's
All I'm qualified to be!
Life's one almighty, ducking, school we've built with our own hands.
We can swim and burn or sink and drown
'cause either way we're damned.
I'm so proud to be the tupping fool, your foul, fantastic freak,
At least each moment I've spent on this earth was totally unique.
Though my belly aches with hunger, weary limbs tremble and shiver,
I'd rather go where waters flow, no well beside the river.
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Seven (and a half) years later, thanks to valkyriemp for the tips on the meaning of "the tupping fool"... Still, the whole meaning eludes me (maybe I'm getting too old) and I can only relate it to sexual behaviour (please, pardon me). But I, honestly, think this is a very great song, and sincerely miss that times when songs were just a merely way to say something that the performer wants to make public in a poetrical manner, not just a way to make money.
"A well besides the river" contains one of the best lyrics for a song I had read in my life (I have 40 years). I don't know what means "the tupping fool" because english is not my natural language. I think this song is giving us advices of what to do with ourselves as human beings.
Maybe it's a 'topping' fool, which would be similar to the expression 'icing on the cake'. Irony intended in that case, I presume.
I've been listening to skyclad for years, but had to look this one up. Thanks wilkipedia
Definitions of tupping on the Web:
As a noun, a tup is a ram (male sheep). As a verb it describes copulation by a ram with a ewe (female sheep). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupping
I don't think you're wrong to interpret the word "tupping" as sexual. The whole Vintage Whine album seems to focus on a woman with whom Martin is... not particularly happy. A couple of the other songs (Bury Me, Little Miss Take) suggest that Martin loved this woman very much, but she didn't take the relationship seriously and left him abruptly. So I think that in this song, he refers to himself as her "tupping fool" because she only used him for sex.
I feel like every time I read Skyclad lyrics, I have to look up some of the words or phrases used, either because I'm not familiar with chiefly British terms, or because the references are just so obscure. It's part of why I love this band so much -- I always end up learning something new from their lyrics.
@sewnomercy Thank you!