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"
(Yes, and disciplinary remains mercifully)
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae, edited by kehlankr, galaxiaad, bwheeler78, sharkycharming, JohnEightThirtyTwo, GrimTone, robodok, dimaqq, afloyd674, nasses321
Wish You Were Here Lyrics as written by Roger Waters David Gilmour
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The Night We Met
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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”
Holiday
Bee Gees
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@[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.
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
For me this song is (like much Floyd) about missed opportunities. Do you really think that right now you can tell the difference between something that will be good in the long run and something short term? Do you really think that you can tell what the difference is between this job and that one? Do you think that you really know if this girl will be better in 5 years, or that one.
Can you tell Heaven from Hell? Can you tell what will work out well from a nightmare? Blue skies from pain? Something "good" from something "bad"
And repeat (in a good way, I love the song)
What it says to me is that you can never tell, at least about your own life (your too close), what is good and what is bad. Look at all of history, the life story of every great artist, the history of every war. Things that seem great one second are just pain the next, and possibly more importantly, things that seem great now can be the undoing of everything.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and often the road to enlightenment is paved with painful mistakes and lessons.
The song grinds this message home. Then expresses loss in the titular line.
That loss seems to be for someone, but is equally for all the missed opportunities and chances. It is the loss of all the lives that could have been. All the dreams left unfulfilled. The chances not taken. Because we could not tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain. Because we could not see beyond the end of our (temporal) noses.
The final segment makes it all the more personal. A relationship that is not working. Two people, neither grasping their dreams, both plodding along in the same routines. Day after day, in the same old way, they bang their heads against the same barriers, never breaking through. Never quite telling that today's blue skies are eternities' pain. Never quite getting to the point where they have to break free or break down. Just bumping of the bowl year after year, running over the same ground.
So for me this is a song about the nature of humanity and it's limited capability to see it's own position in the world, or individually in their own life. It is about the lack of vision of most of man, the limited horizons and the pain that that causes.
And I know that I suffer from all those flaws, and that I am trapped in that position, and that is why I had to listen to this song tonight when I came home.
Many other Floyd songs express similar feelings to me, particularly Time which puts a ticking clock next to the weighing scales of wish you were here. Balance each decision, but don't run out of time.
I think I have failed on both counts. Ho humm, welcome to the machine.
Dude.... fuckin' aye, you just nailed the song. Hope things turn out better for you man.<br /> <br /> Peace.
Wow! Perhaps the most eloquently delivered analysis I've ever read. Well done, Sir.
Perfect.
Jarak, I joined this site so I could tell you how profound your interpretation is. I hope someday you come back to this thread and see what your words have meant. I knew, of course, that the song was about Roger's missing Syd, and I really liked the instrumental introduction. Dave was amazing playing it at Live8. But it never dawned on me that I was the "you" the song was referring to. Now it makes so much sense.
Great... just great
Wow, I just got an e-mail letting me know that someone had commented on my post. A post that I had no recollection of making on a site that if you had asked me yesterday I would have said I have never heard of. Having come here and read the post from me in the past, I have to say I like my style and still agree with what I said. I am just struggling with the strange situation of reading your own words as if for the first time.<br /> <br /> Thanks to all those who have commented, I am sure that there are times over the past 5 years (!) that I could have done with seeing those. <br /> <br /> As it stands at the moment I have put down my little black book, but still have a bag with a toothbrush and a comb in.
@Jarak This is the best explanation of the song, I feel my life as a set of missed opportunities,good or bad, and also you noticed a big truth..how can you know what to decide in certain situations and wonder if it is the right,correct decision. Like you, Time raises the same feelings in me...I'm thinking so much of this song lately...Thanx
@Jarak just thought I would ask if you still read the comments, and also if you found your blue skies, or if you only see the cold steel rail? God gave us dreams, so that we would want to make them a reality. The only thing most people never realize is that we can't fulfill those dreams without God's help. Unless we take the opposite path to get there, and then we end up empty and life is a shell with no substance filling us. <br />
@Jarak Yes, Loving someone that is out of reach. The dreams that will never be
@Jarak wow, in 2021 I read this and looked to my own life while eating cup noodles and hearing my son playing video game, while the baby is upstairs with my wife, that makes me think the good and bad my choices gave me, and how limited is my vision to try to see something about my life even in near future, and all options I put away. You said is so true. Peace.
@Jarak It's December 2023 and I signed up to thank you for this. And I might have something for you. The courage to see... is the courage to be.