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"
I recall a schoolboy coming home
through fields of cane
to a house of tin and timber
and in the sky
a rain of falling cinders
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants
like everyone
just waiting for a chance
his father's watch
he left it in the showers
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world
a world of books
and silent times in thought
and then the railroad
the railroad takes him home
through fields of cattle
through fields of cane
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
the waste memory-wastes
further, longer, higher, older
through fields of cane
to a house of tin and timber
and in the sky
a rain of falling cinders
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants
like everyone
just waiting for a chance
his father's watch
he left it in the showers
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world
a world of books
and silent times in thought
and then the railroad
the railroad takes him home
through fields of cattle
through fields of cane
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
the waste memory-wastes
further, longer, higher, older
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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Little Feat
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
memory wastes. AHH the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, growing up in this big stupid dumb world
I swear that this song was written about me, haha. This song makes me a bit nostalgic about growing up in Queensland, Australia in a sugar cane-growing town (Bundaberg) and then moving to Brisbane to go to university.
Excellent song and I can't believe no one's commented on it yet.
i think this song is about growing up and losing innocence, growing in a sad way... g mclennan's voice is sometime's so sad and nostalgic
I think the stripped-back tune is part of what makes it great. It gives me shivers. So simple, yet so evocative.
Jimmy Little covered this song and I love his version, but the original is great.
Wedding Present covered this song on 'Hit Parade 1'
I think this song is about the Holocaust in the 40's. 'A rain of falling cinders' makes me think of when they burned the bodies at the death camps and the ashes would fall from the sky. 'His father's watch, he left it in the showers' could refer to the 'showers' they said they were giving Jews before they burned them, they would confiscate Jews' belongings before the 'showers'; hence his watch got confiscated before he went into the gas chamber. Also where he sings 'the railroad takes him home' could be referring to the trains they used to take Jews to concentration camps and such, maybe the war had just ended and they were taking him home by train.
ummm you are so far off the mark i had to made a account just to tell you the truth.<br /> no Offense, just its not about that. Its a Queensland Australia song about growing up in the sugar cane fields. We they used to do can burn off the skies would be black and a rain of falling cinders would fall for miles. it happened 100s of times to me as a youth. its about leaving a small town and traveling to the city but he still has<br /> deep memories of his Queensland youth like i do
ummm you are so far off the mark i had to made a account just to tell you the truth.<br /> no Offense, just its not about that. Its a Queensland Australia song about growing up in the sugar cane fields. We they used to do cane burn off the skies would be black and a rain of falling cinders would fall for miles. it happened 100s of times to me as a youth. its about leaving a small town and traveling to the city but he still has<br /> deep memories of his Queensland youth like i do
@quinnmeister -An interesting interpretation but I think it's more literal than that. Memories of growing up in Queensland cattle country and the burning of sugar cane. I guess we're both right because there is no wrong when interpreting songs.
I think this song is about how memories feel so real and powerful to us, even though some should have no relevance, as said in the lyrics, "memory-wastes". "His father's watch, he left it in the shower" seems like a very strange thing to remember, but to the person with the memory it is very important.
@Shroomyjoe He's father died when he was 6. He left it in the showers. The plural suggests somewhere public. The school showers perhaps? They are very sad memories. I think of the waste of an unhappy childhood.
I think the "waste" refers to the narrator's sadness over what he feels he's wasted during his life.. wasted time, wasted youth, even the waste of his father's watch..
Fantastic lyrics, crappy monotone tune. Put it to a decent tune & it would be an all-time great.