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"
It was in the tattoo parlour
Where he engraved their names
Words a winding round his shoulders
Reminders now he's older
In the magic of the parlour
Down his arm unwinds a story
Love and hate and mum and dad
In flames of hope and glory
A mermaid and a schooner
Tells us he was once at sea
A heart pierced by an arrow
Tells us once more in love was he
And a dragon spitting fire
He's forgotten what that's for
But tattooed on his mind
Is a reminder of the war
He gave up tattooing lovers
Where no room for any others
A line through every sweetheart
With another etched below
In every port a stormy girl
They loved him and they loved him so
Each one for all to see adorned
With cupids and with bows
A mermaid and a schooner
Tells us he was once at sea
A heart pierced by an arrow
Tells us once more in love was he
And a dragon spitting fire
He's forgotten what that's for
But tattooed on his mind is a reminder of war
In the magic of the parlour
Swapping laughter swapping stories
Where the words are often hard
And the air is always blue
He remembers all his mates from then
He lost a couple maybe ten
Their headstone on his forearm as a crucifix tattoo
Now he leans upon the bar
With a mysterious air
And the ladies gather round
To view his decorated arms
He'll tell them of each scroll and line
And other scars not so fine
And they always want to see
A little more of old jacks charms
A mermaid and a schooner ...
Where he engraved their names
Words a winding round his shoulders
Reminders now he's older
In the magic of the parlour
Down his arm unwinds a story
Love and hate and mum and dad
In flames of hope and glory
A mermaid and a schooner
Tells us he was once at sea
A heart pierced by an arrow
Tells us once more in love was he
And a dragon spitting fire
He's forgotten what that's for
But tattooed on his mind
Is a reminder of the war
He gave up tattooing lovers
Where no room for any others
A line through every sweetheart
With another etched below
In every port a stormy girl
They loved him and they loved him so
Each one for all to see adorned
With cupids and with bows
A mermaid and a schooner
Tells us he was once at sea
A heart pierced by an arrow
Tells us once more in love was he
And a dragon spitting fire
He's forgotten what that's for
But tattooed on his mind is a reminder of war
In the magic of the parlour
Swapping laughter swapping stories
Where the words are often hard
And the air is always blue
He remembers all his mates from then
He lost a couple maybe ten
Their headstone on his forearm as a crucifix tattoo
Now he leans upon the bar
With a mysterious air
And the ladies gather round
To view his decorated arms
He'll tell them of each scroll and line
And other scars not so fine
And they always want to see
A little more of old jacks charms
A mermaid and a schooner ...
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