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"
Ever since I was a child
You always said that I should understand the rules
You take some and give less
Sit high above the rest...don't you
As I ask a simple question
Cuts me off with his reply
He's been practicing for decades
Now he thinks I have the time
He flows in and out of riddles
Looking me straight in the eye
But it seems like something's missing
From the days when he was more my size
[Chorus:]
Ten years older and I've finally found my pride
This old man comes rolling home to die
Old feelings make it hard to decide
Just what it means to me
Everything exists 'tween black and white
You can twist and distort the most blatant of lies
Or just offer up solutions
Practiced only in your mind
You always said that I should understand the rules
You take some and give less
Sit high above the rest...don't you
As I ask a simple question
Cuts me off with his reply
He's been practicing for decades
Now he thinks I have the time
He flows in and out of riddles
Looking me straight in the eye
But it seems like something's missing
From the days when he was more my size
[Chorus:]
Ten years older and I've finally found my pride
This old man comes rolling home to die
Old feelings make it hard to decide
Just what it means to me
Everything exists 'tween black and white
You can twist and distort the most blatant of lies
Or just offer up solutions
Practiced only in your mind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
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,
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
The song is about a man and his dying father, as Emericanskater put it. However, I think it was both the father AND the son who had acted harshly toward each other. The father treated the son badly, and the son reacted, creating bad blood between them.
The song picks up with the father on his death bed asking forgiveness of the son. The song paints a vivid picture of the father on the death bed in tears witht he son at his side apprehensive and confused about what to do. He needs time to think about it, and he has to take in many factors. This is the first time he's seen his father cry ad he is finally listening to what the father has to say, but his old feelings from his bad memories make it hard for him to decide whether to forgive him or not. He's bitter and surprised at what the father is asking.
Later, though, when the son starts to ask a question, the father cuts him off with what seems to be a plea for forgiveness that he sems to have been practicing for decades. The son finally listens, and he realizes that his father finally realizes what it was like "to be his size," or what how the father really affected his son.
Though a resolution is not declared in the song, the repetition of "Just what he means to me" seems to imply that he forgave his father before he passed, and he now seems to actually miss him.
It's a bittersweet ending to quit a sad story. This song is full of emotion and fueled by great vocals. The lyrics are masterfully crafted and the story is told to perfection. 8stops7 shoukd have found much more success with this song. It is an awesome song and I'd reccomend it to anyone.