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"
Time provides the rope
But love will tie the slipknot
And I will be the chair you kick away
You don't even like anything you like
Or the people you know
And all of your reasons to stay alive died
(Chorus): I dedicate this song to you
For all the desperate things you made me do
I'd like to beat you black and blue
For all the agony you have put me through
Front seat stained with love
A back seat full of bibles
Purloined from the drawers of lost motels
They say when you're older you'll understand
You know it's a lie
'cause you've got a twisted and mangled heart
(Chorus)
Down Route 66
You pilfered love and green stamps
W.C. Fields with Mae West in your eyes
They say every clock's a blunt instrument
Crushing the skull
But you've got a vise to rest your head in
(C)
But love will tie the slipknot
And I will be the chair you kick away
You don't even like anything you like
Or the people you know
And all of your reasons to stay alive died
(Chorus): I dedicate this song to you
For all the desperate things you made me do
I'd like to beat you black and blue
For all the agony you have put me through
Front seat stained with love
A back seat full of bibles
Purloined from the drawers of lost motels
They say when you're older you'll understand
You know it's a lie
'cause you've got a twisted and mangled heart
(Chorus)
Down Route 66
You pilfered love and green stamps
W.C. Fields with Mae West in your eyes
They say every clock's a blunt instrument
Crushing the skull
But you've got a vise to rest your head in
(C)
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Beautiful??? They may be an Emo Bands wet dream of lyrics (if only they came close to being this concise and wonderfully perverse.)
Merritts on about beating the crap out of someone for upsetting him. And why not? Why is it unacceptable to feel pissed off when someone's crapped over you?
If Merritts tongue could be anymore in his cheek than here then... well I'd be surprised.