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"
You used to slide down
The carpeted stairs
Or down the banister
You stuttered like a kaleidoscope
Cause you knew too many words
You used to make ginger bread houses
We used to have taffy pulls
Take ecstasy with me baby
Take ecstasy with me.
You had a black snowmobile
We drove out under the northern lights
A vodka bottle gave you
Those raccoon eyes
We got beat up
Just for holding hands
The carpeted stairs
Or down the banister
You stuttered like a kaleidoscope
Cause you knew too many words
You used to make ginger bread houses
We used to have taffy pulls
Take ecstasy with me baby
Take ecstasy with me.
You had a black snowmobile
We drove out under the northern lights
A vodka bottle gave you
Those raccoon eyes
We got beat up
Just for holding hands
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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Yo La Tengo
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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,
Magical
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Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
It's all in the tense.
You "used," to is repeated throughout the first verse. It directly implies that you do not anymore. These small things, sliding down the bannister, making gingerbread houses, they're these quaint, lovely things you notice when you're in love, particularly in childhood. But, again, these are things that are no longer so.
The entire first verse is a depiction of childhood romance, the wonder, innocence and beauty of it. It's a shame that as you get older romance is not so innocent as it is in childhood, and Stevin Merritt knows so. The first chorus is kind of shocking; from this world of childhood love, Merritt now demands taking ectacy, only its not so much a demand as it is the admission of a last resort.
Obviously, Merritt being gay is important to note. I think in this song the subject is a childhood friendship that has emerged into love. Unfortunatly this kind of love is unacceptable, but neither was willing to give it up. To get beat up just for holding hands is horrible, but I don't think either of them was destroyed by this. I can imagine it only making the relationship stronger, because the answer to this violent reaction is obviously compassion for eachother.
I think the black snowmobile is a venture probably taken quite often in childhood. I imagine this song emerging after a reaquintance with eachother after a very long parting. I think these two find that whatever passion was strong enough to risk injury, and endure struggle throughout growing up, whatever magic was there as they shared taffy pulls is gone. And as I said, they go to great lengths to reignite it. The black snowmobile is desperation, and of course, snowmobiles are always destined to be headed somewhere cold and icy, and so are Merritt and lover.
They drink vodka, but drinking only makes them realize just how distant they've become. As Merritt enters into the final chorus it's apparent that this has failed him, that he believes its going to take some kind of miracle to reanimate what was worth any risk to feel when he was younger. And that miracle is, he hopes, this tiny little pill. Not an answer, as he's certainly acknowledged by now, vodka bottle drained and departed, that what he has will never be what he had. A pill is a temporary fix, and he knows it, but its not an answer, because he doesn't have one. It's a suggestion, a desperate hope for feeling again.
@Joelhughes2006 very well said