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"
I was just bony hands as cold as a winder pole
You held a warm stone out new flowing blood to hold
Oh what a contrast you were
To the brutes in the halls
My timid young fingers held a decent animal
Over the ramparts you tossed
The scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
Tied to a brick, sweet as a song
The years have been short but the days were long
Cool of a temperate breeze from dark skies to wet grass
We fell in a field, it seems now a thousand summers passed
When our kite lines first crossed
We tied them into knots
And to finally fly apart we had to cut them off
Since then it's been a book you read in reverse
So you understand less as the pages turn
Or a movie so crass and awkwardly cast
That even I could be the star
I don't look back much as a rule
And all this way before murder was cool
But your memory is here and I'd like it to stay
Warm light on a winter's day
Over the ramparts you tossed
The scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
Tied to a brick, sweet as a song
The years have seemed short but the days go slowly by
Two loose kites falling from the sky
Drawn to the ground and an end to flight
You held a warm stone out new flowing blood to hold
Oh what a contrast you were
To the brutes in the halls
My timid young fingers held a decent animal
Over the ramparts you tossed
The scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
Tied to a brick, sweet as a song
The years have been short but the days were long
Cool of a temperate breeze from dark skies to wet grass
We fell in a field, it seems now a thousand summers passed
When our kite lines first crossed
We tied them into knots
And to finally fly apart we had to cut them off
Since then it's been a book you read in reverse
So you understand less as the pages turn
Or a movie so crass and awkwardly cast
That even I could be the star
I don't look back much as a rule
And all this way before murder was cool
But your memory is here and I'd like it to stay
Warm light on a winter's day
Over the ramparts you tossed
The scent of your skin and some foreign flowers
Tied to a brick, sweet as a song
The years have seemed short but the days go slowly by
Two loose kites falling from the sky
Drawn to the ground and an end to flight
Lyrics submitted by doobeydoobeydude, edited by BelleMeloy, rockisgroovy, smallwonderrobot
Pink Bullets Lyrics as written by James Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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i think a lot of the shins songs are references to their early childhood school days. (ex. know your onion! and pink bullets.)
my favorite line from this song is
"oh what a contrast you were to the brutes in the halls my timid young fingers held a decent animal"
how can you read that and not be reminded of being a tiny little kid scared of everyone and people picking on you... and then out comes this kid (girl or boy, whatever) and they take your hand and lead you to the play dough table or something. come on. you know it is.
anyway, most songs written are about love. i think the shins have the most amazing and original ways of presenting love songs. they write about the different levels of love and human connections made at different ages. i love them for it.