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"
Maybe it would be fun
To get a new opinion
Get a little work done
And forget
Maybe it would be cool
If I rocked it old school
Try to break a gold rule
And a sweat
Better than the first time
Better than the worst time
If I could just reverse time
I'd be set
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
She got a new apartment
It's out on the escarpment
And in her glove compartment
Are my songs
She hasn't even heard them
Since she found out what the words meant
She decided she preferred them
All wrong
Kind of like the last time
With a bunch of really fast rhymes
If we're living in the past time
Soon gone
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
We recognize the present
Is half as pleasant
As our nostalgia for
The past'll be presented
Recast and reinvented
Until it's how we meant it
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
He's everything that you need
You wiped out on your ten speed
And either he will succeed
Or just suck
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Begin the...
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Would I be in the clear, G?
Testing 1,2,3
Testing 1,2,3
To get a new opinion
Get a little work done
And forget
Maybe it would be cool
If I rocked it old school
Try to break a gold rule
And a sweat
Better than the first time
Better than the worst time
If I could just reverse time
I'd be set
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
She got a new apartment
It's out on the escarpment
And in her glove compartment
Are my songs
She hasn't even heard them
Since she found out what the words meant
She decided she preferred them
All wrong
Kind of like the last time
With a bunch of really fast rhymes
If we're living in the past time
Soon gone
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
We recognize the present
Is half as pleasant
As our nostalgia for
The past'll be presented
Recast and reinvented
Until it's how we meant it
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
He's everything that you need
You wiped out on your ten speed
And either he will succeed
Or just suck
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Begin the...
Testing 1,2,3
Can anybody hear me?
If I shed the irony
Would anybody cheer me?
If I acted less like me
Would I be in the clear?
Would I be in the clear, G?
Testing 1,2,3
Testing 1,2,3
Lyrics submitted by neko-chan
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I think the "King of like the last time With a bunch of really fast rhymes" is referring to their old hit, One Week
I love this song, partly because it is probably the only pop song (that I know of, anyway) ever to use the word 'escarpment.' ^_^ I also like the lyrics "she hasn't even heard them/since she found out what the words meant/she decided she preferred them/all wrong". Too true, and not just with these songs. We always prefer our own interpretations, don't we? That said, I believe 'the past'll be presented' should be 'the past that we resented'.
Perhaps this is Ed Robertson wondering if he should push his new image in a new direction? Perhaps he's tired of being remembered for "One Week" and wants to move on. He's looking back and realizing the futility of thinking how it could have gone differently.
Instead of "Kind of like the last time With a bunch of really fast times" It should be: "Kind of like the last time With a bunch of really fast rhymes"
a lot of times we dont feel like anyone is listening to us. kinda alone. some people dont like what we're saying anyways. kinda wondering if we changed would it make a difference. gah, who cares. this song rocks no matter what it means!
I'm going to agree with wrion. It's got to be about Ed Robertson wanting to move on from his past. The Barenaked Ladies have very much changed their sound since Maroon. So he's saying that he wants to, sort of, leave the old days behind and try something new. But he'd also like to go back and redo some of the things he'd done.
Awesome song.
"she got a new apartment its down on the escarpment" can either mean schabro (town in toronto ON, Where Stephen Page os from) or niagra escaptment
That line about the fast rhymes is about Ed. Go on YouTube and watch the video for the song youtube.com/watch Pause it at around 1:33 and if you look closely, you can tell it says Chickety China The Chinese Chicken and continues with One Week. Quite cool really...
oops sorry, forgot to put what the meaning of the whole song is, at least, in my opinion. I think it's about people not accepting you as you are. You know, how people change to be accepted ("If I acted less like me, would I be in the clear?") Maybe more like the singer changed (hence the reference to 'One Week") and people aren't really accepting him and sometimes he just wishes that he go back to when he was accepted but he doesn't really want to because he likes who he is even though no one else does...Does that make sense?
"She hasn't even heard them Since she found out what the words meant She decided she preferred them All wrong"
I love how this is like nearly every single one of BNL's song. Everything has a million and five meanings but most aren't the intended meaning. And I just love it.... Because I do prefer most of them 'all wrong'. Yay Ed!