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"
Frank the new CEO had to answer to the board
The board was getting anxious and the shareholders
Were on the bed legs in air, ass cheeks open wide
They were about to get fucked like it was there first time
When one makes 20 million, and 10,000 people lose
What keeps that one from swallowing a shotgun
Dan the company man felt loyalty to the corp
After 16 years of service and a family to support
He actually started to believe the weaponry and chemicals were for our security
'Cause Danny had a mortgage and a boss to answer to
The guilty don't feel guilty, they learn not to
Helen is living in her car, and trying to feed her kids
She got laid off from work and her house was repossessed
Desperate people have been known to render desperate deeds
But when she shot that family and moved into their home
The paper read she suffered from dementia
The board was getting anxious and the shareholders
Were on the bed legs in air, ass cheeks open wide
They were about to get fucked like it was there first time
When one makes 20 million, and 10,000 people lose
What keeps that one from swallowing a shotgun
Dan the company man felt loyalty to the corp
After 16 years of service and a family to support
He actually started to believe the weaponry and chemicals were for our security
'Cause Danny had a mortgage and a boss to answer to
The guilty don't feel guilty, they learn not to
Helen is living in her car, and trying to feed her kids
She got laid off from work and her house was repossessed
Desperate people have been known to render desperate deeds
But when she shot that family and moved into their home
The paper read she suffered from dementia
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Anyone that thinks the last verse of this song doesn't fit doesn't understand the song. As others have said already, it's what MAKES the song. There are 3 examples. The first one is a rich business man who exploits everyone helping to pay his salary for the benefit of himself. The second is a typical, middle class guy who goes to work, does his job, collects his check, and doesn't ask questions. He does it to support himself and his family. The final verse is the woman who has constantly had life shit on her. She finally decides to prey on someone higher up the 'ladder' to support her own family. She's deemed 'crazy'. What's the difference? Murder is a bit extreme, I'll give you that, but take murder out of it, and look at it as robbery. Is what the woman in the 3rd verse did different than the one in the first? Would she not still be vilified?
Two lines. The guilty don't feel guilty they learn not to. Desperate people have been known to render desperate deeds. The CEO, the shareholders, the company man and Helen...all guilty...and all desperate. They do what they have to do to survive. Survival is a basic instinct. Doesn't matter where you are on the social ladder.
While its true that people learn to not feel guilty at every level, and the lines reflect on all the individuals in the song not just the last woman. It is important to realize that the purpose of this song is to point out the injustice of the situation. While the CEO can screw over the shareholders without much backlash, the woman is deemed degenerate. Where the company man who makes horrible weapons that are used to only destroy, he isn't punished for it, just the same as the CEO. But the woman who does what she does in order to protect her family is of course punished.<br /> <br /> The point is that they're ALL guilty, and they should ALL be held accountable. But they're not going to all be held accountable, because weapons made for "national defense" and something crooked done in the name of "business" is alright in the eyes of the government. Leaving the only one who gets punished is the woman who is least capable of defending herself for her misdeeds.
Hell no, the last part doesn't ruin the song! Acctualy it's a good part, becaus that's the way it goes when some people wants more, some gotta lose, and in this song, helen is the one loosing big time.. That's whats gonna happen in america, Rich people wants to get richer and richer, while the middle class looses on that.. And this song explains it in a good way, Acctualy Michael Moore's book Stupid white men is about all this and i'm pretty sure Fat mike has read it a couple of times
The last part is the most important to me. In the first you have a guy who steals a lot of money and hurts a lot of people for his own good and probably only feels guilt that he was caught. The second we have a guy who lies to himself saying that working for a company that produces “weaponry and chemicals… for national defense”. Then in the last part we meet a woman who has done nothing wrong but bad things keep happening to her. To ensure the survival of her family she “shot a family and moved into their home” and “The paper read she suffered from dementia.” Funny, the woman who had no choice in the matter (ok, murder is extreme, but she was the only one who was pushed into what she did by others) was the one who they labeled as delusional.
I wasn't gonna comment (bcoz everything i saw was stated here), until i read Jay & Runningace 's comments.
I can't say anything more than you both are retards, so anything you say will be handle as if it was said by a mentally retarded person.
I just want to point out I'm PRETTY sure it's "felt loyalty to the CORPS" not "core."
I think the song rests on the lyric "But" in the last verse. Basically Helen is in the worst living situation of the 3 people, but she's labelled as the most irrational because she kills a family. Maybe Mike's trying to say that the other 2 people are equally or more irrational because their positions affect more lives in a negative way.
Also, the wikipedia article with the similar title as this song fits the theme of the album well, but moreso "idiots are taking over".
This songs title and theme is a reference to a theory called "rational irrationality". It was coined in 2001 a couple of years b4 this album was written - basically it describes how people rationalize their irrational behavior , in terms of politics( such as voting ) , religion ( beliefs) or just life decisions. Each verse is an example of rationalized irrational behavior .
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_irrationality
This is the best song on NOFX's most serious album to date. You get the feeling from this album that Fat Mike is starting to see the world at face value and realize the bullshit that's really going on. This song takes on 3 issues: Greed in big business, society (and patriotism) blinding citizens from the wrongs their country is commiting, and the justification of "scary" people so that everyone can feel safe. Amazing song -- and I think the line "The guilty don't feel guilty they learn not to" applies to almost all facets of life.
I like the first two stanzas of this song, but on the third Fat Mike shows his lacking sense of reality. Perhaps being a Californian, he could not help it. I mean he was making good points in the first two parts but then he says something really ridiculus in the last part and ruins whatever aura of wisdom could be conferred from this song.