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"
So states of unsatisfaction, objects which deceive or which reveal an absence, are the only forms through which the individual recovers his deceptive uniqueness. The city might fix it or establish it, but isolated existence alone has the chance to do what the city must and can do, without the power to do it. It is all very well for Sartre to say of Baudelaire: 'his dearest wish was to be like the stone, the statue, in the repose of immutability.' He can represent the poet as eager to extract some petrifiable image from the mists of the past, but the images which he left participated in a life which was open, infinite in Baudelaire's sense of the word, [here becoming indistinct] that is to say, unsatisfied. It is therefore misleading to maintain that Baudelaire wanted the impossible statue or that he could not exist, unless we immediately add that he wanted the impossible far more than he wanted the statue. ....
[A time to ease your solace, a time to be so small]
We saw you from the urchin's side,
from under the boat
We saw you making knots,
we saw you get the rope
The boy appearing on the deck, you're making it lurch
The bubble of your interest's ready to burst, burst
He whistles and he runs
[Oooooooh]
[Ooooooooooh]
[Ooooooh]
We saw you in distraction:
a sleeping slow despair
Rehearsing interaction, he wasn't even there
A creature is a creature,
though you wish you were the wind
The boat will not stop moving
if you tie him up until the end
He whistles and he runs so hold him fast
Breathe the burn, he wants to let it last
He might succumb to what you haven't been
He has a keen eye for what you didn't see
When the cadaverous mob saves their doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob saves its doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
Ahhhhhhh
[Fancy summer's stall, a time to be so small]
[To the urchin, see our mirrored time for all]
[A summerside way of life, a time to be so small]
[Stronger by the urchin's side, a time to be so small]
[The urchin will lurch in there for this]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
Cadaverous mob saves their doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob saves its doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
[Lurching, lurching, searching, lurching]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in]
[It's all in the faded past]
[The bottom of the unwind]
[It's the end of the this]
[The bottom of the unwind]
[A time to ease your solace, a time to be so small]
We saw you from the urchin's side,
from under the boat
We saw you making knots,
we saw you get the rope
The boy appearing on the deck, you're making it lurch
The bubble of your interest's ready to burst, burst
He whistles and he runs
[Oooooooh]
[Ooooooooooh]
[Ooooooh]
We saw you in distraction:
a sleeping slow despair
Rehearsing interaction, he wasn't even there
A creature is a creature,
though you wish you were the wind
The boat will not stop moving
if you tie him up until the end
He whistles and he runs so hold him fast
Breathe the burn, he wants to let it last
He might succumb to what you haven't been
He has a keen eye for what you didn't see
When the cadaverous mob saves their doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob saves its doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
Ahhhhhhh
[Fancy summer's stall, a time to be so small]
[To the urchin, see our mirrored time for all]
[A summerside way of life, a time to be so small]
[Stronger by the urchin's side, a time to be so small]
[The urchin will lurch in there for this]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
Cadaverous mob saves their doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob saves its doors for the dead men
You cannot leave
[Lurching, lurching, searching, lurching]
[The urchin will lurch in there for the facts]
[The urchin will lurch in]
[It's all in the faded past]
[The bottom of the unwind]
[It's the end of the this]
[The bottom of the unwind]
Lyrics submitted by Interpolnyc, edited by sonofmyrighthand
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
I had never been the hugest fan of this song until very recently (this morning) it took hold of me, and though it may have my to do with my own life than I'd care to admit my interpretation is this: An observer watching a woman fall for a man. The woman has never had the courage to tell anyone how she really feels but if she doesn't tell this particular guy (myself, if anyone's wondering about the significance to my own life), she'll lose him, (Not unlike the metaphor in the little mermaid).
The first verse tells the story of how she met him. Probably at work, she saw him more and more until they inevitably connected and their romance was born (or bubble burst).
The second verse is about how her passion for him intensified, "rehearsing interaction, he wasn't even there" I imagine masturbation, but that's just the Paul Banks part of my mind maybe. The whole theme to it seems like a passion growing but her resenting the fact that she is falling for him because she can't stand being vulnerable.
The chorus describes the man. He whistles and he runs, (he has his own life and will be fine without her.) Breathe the burn, you wanna let it last, (their sex is amazing, but casual romances are fleeting.) But he might succumb to what she hasn't been. (If she can open up to him, he may fall for her too.) He however has a keen eye for what you used to be, (he knows she is afraid of being vulnerable, but if she can't be vulnerable now, when would she ever be able to?)
Now my favourite line of the whole song: When the cadaverous mob saves its doors for the dead men, you cannot leave. I can hardly even describe what this means in my mind but imagine her finally being forced to make her decision about him. She can't hide in her fabricated cynicisms about love anymore.
When the cadaverous mob, (the mass of people who don't believe love exists,) has saved its doors for the dead men, (don't line up with what she believes anymore so she either has to admit she cares for this gentleman or forever fade into romantic obscurity) You cannot leave, (there's no way to put off this choice anymore, either she loves him and tells him, or she can't overcome her fears and loses him forever.)