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"
After all these implements and texts designed by intellects
So vexed to find evidently there's still so much that hides
And though the saints dub us divine in ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to pluck from the vine
I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Since I don't have the time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives
The cruel, uneventful state of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
But Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you
Nothing holds a Roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you
Nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside you
So vexed to find evidently there's still so much that hides
And though the saints dub us divine in ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to pluck from the vine
I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Since I don't have the time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives
The cruel, uneventful state of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
But Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you
Nothing holds a Roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you
Nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside you
Lyrics submitted by doobeydoobeydude, edited by smallwonderrobot, Portishead93
Saint Simon Lyrics as written by James Russell Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I interpreted this song to be about political and philosophical maturity rather than about growing up in general. Of course, before I even listened to the song I assumed it would contain a political message given that that it is named after one of the "fathers" of socialism.
The first verse appears (to me) to be alluding to the enormity and complexity of past works and how authors have written whole volumes about the subtle differences between different schools of thought and that these views are much too intricate to just "pluck from the vine".
I understood "I'll try hard to not pretend / allow myself no mock defense" to be about how easy it is to drop names like Saint-Simon or Thomas More (as in So Says I) and defend your views by impressing and bewildering people. In my eyes, at least, the writer seems to be promising intellectual honesty.
Referring to these writings as "nursery rhymes" seems to be a combination of two factors. The first is irony in the way that society often dismisses the work of geniuses (such as Saint Simon) in his talking about Socialism because "communism doesn't work", without considering the amount of perception that is within a writer's wealth of ideas about the human condition and how to improve human life. The second factor in the use of the term "nursery rhyme" seems to be a confessional one - the writer is, as well as criticising society, endeavouring to belittle the works because "apathy releases" him from the responsibility to read them.
This is then followed by "I'll try hard not to give in", which appears to refer to trying hard to resist the "wind" of society's political views as a whole and thinking individually, despite not reading ancient tomes.
Finally, the part about "mercy" seems to be referring to the relief of being absolved and forgiven from neglecting to read all that one feels they should about humans and society. Interestingly, mercy is personified as a woman and the singer's relationship with her is referred to as "love". I'd like to end with the thought that what is being suggested is that true understanding of life, human nature and purpose can be understood more fully and truly than in any book when Love is found. What a hopeless romantic I am.
Anyway, all just my interpretation of course.
Yes!
@spamuell Um... can I take you to dinner?
I love your optimism that 12 years later I still obsessively refresh songmeanings.net in the hope of a response.
@spamuell This was great, helped shape my interpretation of the song. Thanks
@spamuell This is a brilliant interpretation of Saint Simon, can you please interpret more Shins songs? Maybe Red Rabbits, or So Says I, which you mention and I believe is also about human nature’s inability to live out the utopias we can imagine.