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"
Theologians
They don't know nothing
About my soul
About my soul
I'm an ocean
An abyss in motion
Slow motion
Slow motion
Inlitterati lumen fidei
God is with us everyday
That illiterate light
Is with us every night
Theologians
That don't know nothing
About my soul
Oh they don't know
They thin my heart with little things
And my life with change
Oh in so many ways
I find more missing every day
Theologians
I'm going away
Where you will look for me
Where I'm going you cannot come
No one's ever gonna take my life from me
I lay it down
A ghost is born
A ghost is born
A ghost is born
I'm an ocean
I'm all emotion
I'm a cherry ghost
Cherry ghost
Hey I'm a cherry ghost
A cherry ghost
They don't know nothing
About my soul
About my soul
I'm an ocean
An abyss in motion
Slow motion
Slow motion
Inlitterati lumen fidei
God is with us everyday
That illiterate light
Is with us every night
Theologians
That don't know nothing
About my soul
Oh they don't know
They thin my heart with little things
And my life with change
Oh in so many ways
I find more missing every day
Theologians
I'm going away
Where you will look for me
Where I'm going you cannot come
No one's ever gonna take my life from me
I lay it down
A ghost is born
A ghost is born
A ghost is born
I'm an ocean
I'm all emotion
I'm a cherry ghost
Cherry ghost
Hey I'm a cherry ghost
A cherry ghost
Lyrics submitted by eastcidskl
Theologians Lyrics as written by Jeffrey Scot Tweedy Chris Girard
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Definitely a good discussion here. I, too, have been interested in hearing Jeff's ideas concerning God, especially after I heard "One True Vine." But, that aside, I was listening to some Tweedy solo bootlegs online today, and happened upon a version of this song that he did. Most of the track was Jeff bantering with the crowd, which is always amusing to me, but someone asked "What the hell is a cherry ghost?"
Tweedy: "What the hell is a cherry ghost? If you have to ask, you'll never know. Why does everything have to MEAN something? Sometimes a cherry ghost is just a cherry ghost." It was pretty funny.
But I do agree with the sentiments here that, while theologians make it their own to study God and all that stuff, but really, they'll never figure him out. I think it's funny when people think that God thinks like people, or that he's bound by the same laws of physics and/or metaphysics that we are. And for all the studying that theologians have done or continue to do, what good is it doing? Are people turning to God in times of need? And if they are, is it because of the work of God, or of theologians? What conclusions can a theologian come to that an average joe like me can't? Christ himself says, "Ask and you will receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you." So if I want to know more about God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit (which I think is the object in the line "a ghost is born," since the Spirit replaced Christ's presence on earth when the latter was raised to heaven), all I really need to do is study my Bible, and ask the Spirit for the insight to understand it. And I can speak from personal experience that it doesn't always come in the amount or intensity that you always want, but if you really, truly want understanding, you'll get it. It's not like some carrot that is dangled in front of you, never to be reached.
Anyway, I got off on a tangent. But the point is, I don't need theologians to tell me about God. And Jeff's right...they don't know nothin' about my soul.