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"
Backwater
We're sailing at the edges of time
Backwater
We're drifting at the waterline
Oh we're floating in the coastal waters
You and me and the porter's daughters
Ooh what to do not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter's daughters
Dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh what to do in a tiny canoe
Black water
There were six of us but now we are five
We're all talking
To keep the conversation alive
There was a senator from Ecuador
Who talked about a meteor
That crashed on a hill in the south of Peru
And was found by a conquistador
Who took it to the emperor
And he passed it on to a Turkish guru
His daughter
Was slated for becoming divine
He taught her
He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
And heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So it's much more realistic
To abandon such ballistics
And resign to be trapped on a leaf in a vine
We're sailing at the edges of time
Backwater
We're drifting at the waterline
Oh we're floating in the coastal waters
You and me and the porter's daughters
Ooh what to do not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter's daughters
Dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh what to do in a tiny canoe
Black water
There were six of us but now we are five
We're all talking
To keep the conversation alive
There was a senator from Ecuador
Who talked about a meteor
That crashed on a hill in the south of Peru
And was found by a conquistador
Who took it to the emperor
And he passed it on to a Turkish guru
His daughter
Was slated for becoming divine
He taught her
He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
And heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So it's much more realistic
To abandon such ballistics
And resign to be trapped on a leaf in a vine
Lyrics submitted by planetearth
Backwater Lyrics as written by Brian Eno
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The first verse establishes the material, for no reason, since the others will soon demolish it. Apart from the edges of time bit, very charming in its inexplicability, there is not much to say. The second one is a typical Eno raving (cf. e.g. the last stanza of The Fat Lady of Limbourg or the last one of Driving Me Backwards), not of the worst kind. Consistently enoesque (and, I would add, with no more meaning that the meaning of using language) is also the subtle shift from backwater to black water.
The last verse sums up the whole before and after science problematic as a direct and dense comparison, or maybe juxtaposition, of two paradigms, both in a way close to Eno's thought: mysticism and science. Divinity is here reached by conquering math, which is an axiomatic system (the axiomatic system), therefore moving in a line -even if producing arboreal structures. Here lies the first problem: if divinity is reached this way, why would the mystics have a problem with that? I guess it is the wrong kind of divinity, the one involving the subjugation of nature and man (possibly conquered, let me remind you, through a meteor that traveled from Peru to Turkey). Studying the logistics (in some anachronistic manner, evidently) and heuristics (accurate) of the mystics will reveal that they don't work axiomatically (interesting to note here that historically mysticism has always kept a cordial relationship with math, e.g. Pythagoreans, Kabbalah, Plotinus). While the stanza is one of his best, his argument is faulty: why would it be more realistic, of all things, to leave ballistics (part of physics, the birthplace of modern science) behind because of the above? First of all, linking mysticism to some sort of utilitarianism, connoted by realism, doesn't sound right. Even if this could stand, why would it be realistic for anyone apart from an already convinced follower of mysticism (whatever this entity is)? Realism could also be evoking philosophical realism, of course, in which case things could get more complicated, but it is already quite late (3 a.m.!) to delve into that. Resigning to be trapped in god, in fate, is where we are finally lead. One could prefer, though, surpassing both fatalism and positivism and link necessity to freedom, being sovereign of nothing but entering a thousand small worlds at each glance...
@bV * no more meaning than