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"
I left my home in Norfolk Virginia
California on my mind
I straddled that Greyhound
And rode into Raleigh and on across Caroline
We had motor trouble that turn into a struggle
Halfway across Alabama
And that hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham
Right away I brought me a through train ticket
Ridin' across Mississippi clean
I was on that midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans
Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston Town
There are people there, who care a little about me
And they won't let the poor boy down
Sure as you're born brought me a silk suit
Put luggage in my hand
And I woke up high over Albuquerque
On a jet to the promised land
Working on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the golden state
When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes
He would set us at the terminal gate
Swing low chariot come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling
And the poor boy is on the line
Working on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the golden state
When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes
He would set us at the terminal gate
Swing low chariot come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling
And the poor boy is on the line
California on my mind
I straddled that Greyhound
And rode into Raleigh and on across Caroline
We had motor trouble that turn into a struggle
Halfway across Alabama
And that hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham
Right away I brought me a through train ticket
Ridin' across Mississippi clean
I was on that midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans
Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston Town
There are people there, who care a little about me
And they won't let the poor boy down
Sure as you're born brought me a silk suit
Put luggage in my hand
And I woke up high over Albuquerque
On a jet to the promised land
Working on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the golden state
When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes
He would set us at the terminal gate
Swing low chariot come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling
And the poor boy is on the line
Working on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the golden state
When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes
He would set us at the terminal gate
Swing low chariot come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling
And the poor boy is on the line
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The Night We Met
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Great version of a great song,
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