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've got a plan to make it rich and famous,
Luck for me, for you it's a bitch you ain't in,
My plans are slowly changing,
Fame is so contagious,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I must confess I've been a ve-ry bad boy,
Been sleeping around talk of the town,
My name is,
Hollywood will beckon,
Everyone will listen,
Play my Video,
Hear me on the Radio,
Dancing at the disco,
No-one ever says no,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
My friends are all in Limousine's,
My friends are all Celebrities,
ha, ha, ha,
I just sold my soul,
Play my Video,
Hear me on the Radio,
Dancing at the disco,
No-one ever says no,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
My friends are all Celebrities,
My friends are all in limousine's
Play my Video,
(I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,)
(I want to be pop-ular,)
Hear me on the Radio
(I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,)
(I want to be popular,)
Dancing at the disco,
(I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,)
(I want to be pop-ular)
No-one ever says no,
(I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,)
(I want to be popular)
Are you willing to sleep you way to the top?
Do you want to be pop-ular?
Luck for me, for you it's a bitch you ain't in,
My plans are slowly changing,
Fame is so contagious,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I must confess I've been a ve-ry bad boy,
Been sleeping around talk of the town,
My name is,
Hollywood will beckon,
Everyone will listen,
Play my Video,
Hear me on the Radio,
Dancing at the disco,
No-one ever says no,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
My friends are all in Limousine's,
My friends are all Celebrities,
ha, ha, ha,
I just sold my soul,
Play my Video,
Hear me on the Radio,
Dancing at the disco,
No-one ever says no,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,
I want to be pop-ular,
I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,
I want to be popular,
My friends are all Celebrities,
My friends are all in limousine's
Play my Video,
(I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,)
(I want to be pop-ular,)
Hear me on the Radio
(I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,)
(I want to be popular,)
Dancing at the disco,
(I'm willing to sleep my way to the top,)
(I want to be pop-ular)
No-one ever says no,
(I don't want to keep my feet on the ground,)
(I want to be popular)
Are you willing to sleep you way to the top?
Do you want to be pop-ular?
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The Night We Met
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This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Dreamwalker
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
No Surprises
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
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Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
This is what Darren said about Popular :
We are obsessed with fame..it has become a vocation we now train for and people are literally willing to do anything to get it. At the same time I was feeling completely bored with my persona and the corner of musical direction I’d painted myself into. I was bored with pop music, bored with the radio.. and really wrote this song as a way of poking fun at myself and the conveyor belt that brought me to this point in my career. It’s ironic because in the song I’m proclaiming all the things I am not. And yet it rings true because I’m sure deep down there was and some days still is a part of me that is tempted by the devil that is fame.
One really wouldn't have taken this song seriously, at face value anyway. =) Regarding the music, I WAS surprised to hear Darren singing this kind of music, but I guess the fact that I expected something else was what he meant by being bored with his persona and being painted into one "corner of musical direction". ^^
A great song. Such a hilariously funny poke at the media today and our general culture in North America. The best part is, if you don't know Darren Hayes, or aren't familiar with his music, you may think his lyrics are sincere. Which, I've had to reassure many of my friends that he is, in fact, joking.
Hahaha I can't believe there were people that didn't get the joke lol. It was a smart single, with a great fun video :)
lol i love this song and im really surprised hardly any ppl hav commented on it. i love the film clip, its just like, very real and yeah, pretty cool :P as are most of his songs/film clips.