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"
A mile and a half on a bus takes a long time
The odor of old prison food takes a long time to pass you by
Day upon day of this wandering gets you down
Nobody gives you a chance or a dollar in this old town
Hovering silence from you is a giveaway
Squalor and smoke's not your style
"I don't like this place"
We better go
Then I compare notes with your older sister
I am a lazy get, she is as pure as the cold driven snow
What did you learn from your time in the solitary
Cell of your mind?
There was noises, the distractions from anything good
And the old prison food
Colour my life with the chaos of trouble
'Cause anything's better than posh isolation
I missed the bus
You were laid on your back
With the boy with the Arab strap
With the boy from the Arab strap
It's something to speak of the way you are feeling
To crowds there assembled
Do you ever feel you have gone too far?
Everyone suffers in silence a burden
The man who drives minicabs down in old Compton
The Asian man
With his love hate affair
With his racist clientele
A central location for you is a must
As you stagger about making free with your lewd and lascivious boasts
We all know you are soft 'cause we've all seen you dancing
We all know you're hard 'cause we all saw you drinking from noon
Until noon again
You're the boy with the filthy laugh
You're the boy with the Arab strap
Strapped to the table with suits from the shelter shop
Comic celebrity takes a back seat as the cigarette catches
And sets off the smoke alarm
What do you make of the cool set in London?
You're constantly updating your hit parade of your ten biggest wanks
She's a waitress and she's got style
The odor of old prison food takes a long time to pass you by
Day upon day of this wandering gets you down
Nobody gives you a chance or a dollar in this old town
Hovering silence from you is a giveaway
Squalor and smoke's not your style
"I don't like this place"
We better go
Then I compare notes with your older sister
I am a lazy get, she is as pure as the cold driven snow
What did you learn from your time in the solitary
Cell of your mind?
There was noises, the distractions from anything good
And the old prison food
Colour my life with the chaos of trouble
'Cause anything's better than posh isolation
I missed the bus
You were laid on your back
With the boy with the Arab strap
With the boy from the Arab strap
It's something to speak of the way you are feeling
To crowds there assembled
Do you ever feel you have gone too far?
Everyone suffers in silence a burden
The man who drives minicabs down in old Compton
The Asian man
With his love hate affair
With his racist clientele
A central location for you is a must
As you stagger about making free with your lewd and lascivious boasts
We all know you are soft 'cause we've all seen you dancing
We all know you're hard 'cause we all saw you drinking from noon
Until noon again
You're the boy with the filthy laugh
You're the boy with the Arab strap
Strapped to the table with suits from the shelter shop
Comic celebrity takes a back seat as the cigarette catches
And sets off the smoke alarm
What do you make of the cool set in London?
You're constantly updating your hit parade of your ten biggest wanks
She's a waitress and she's got style
Lyrics submitted by ReActor, edited by daintyhrts, alice144, emilierein
The Boy With The Arab Strap Lyrics as written by Isobel Campbell Christopher Geddes
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Hipgnosis Songs Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"What did you learn from your time in the solitary Cell of your mind?" apart from the face value meaning could also mean someone really stupid -i.e. only having 1 brain cell. I think from the writer's perspective it's about his girlfriend sleeping with the guy from the other band - "laid on your back with the boy from the arab strap" I suppose when he says "with" instead of from he's insiuating the other guy has erectile dysfunction? The guy from B&S doesnt think much of this guy, see the lines/verse about being hard/soft (think penises again also)