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're on your own now, we're tired of lending hands
A new agenda, it cuts you from all our plans
So get in line boy, and keep that mouth of yours closed
Don't need opinions, just work them hands to bones
We stood in places, watched them tear us apart
cut us open, and ripped out all our parts
but we kept quiet, we let them have their way
We made our point by having nothing to say
We all broke up right on cue
We'll take you down with us too
Better jump ship, this bastard is sinking fast
nothing to save here
Our worth has all but passed,
the muddy waters are slippin in through the cracks
the ship, the ship, the ship is sinkin, the ship, the ship, the ship is sinkin
We sit on our hands and watched it all fall
No one blinks an eye (eye eye eye).
There's not much worth saving
just lots of buildings
and concrete colored skies
and you came and picked us up
you combed our hair, and made us look like people
and we learned to feed ourselves again
we built some homes and filled them full of clones
but we wont wait till you get back
we'll be gone long before you arrive
we were never built to last
but we'd like to tell ya
thanks for the good times, it was nice to have known ya
we'll all be just fine, and we'll try to write ya
we appreciate the lies, but were done believing you
A new agenda, it cuts you from all our plans
So get in line boy, and keep that mouth of yours closed
Don't need opinions, just work them hands to bones
We stood in places, watched them tear us apart
cut us open, and ripped out all our parts
but we kept quiet, we let them have their way
We made our point by having nothing to say
We all broke up right on cue
We'll take you down with us too
Better jump ship, this bastard is sinking fast
nothing to save here
Our worth has all but passed,
the muddy waters are slippin in through the cracks
the ship, the ship, the ship is sinkin, the ship, the ship, the ship is sinkin
We sit on our hands and watched it all fall
No one blinks an eye (eye eye eye).
There's not much worth saving
just lots of buildings
and concrete colored skies
and you came and picked us up
you combed our hair, and made us look like people
and we learned to feed ourselves again
we built some homes and filled them full of clones
but we wont wait till you get back
we'll be gone long before you arrive
we were never built to last
but we'd like to tell ya
thanks for the good times, it was nice to have known ya
we'll all be just fine, and we'll try to write ya
we appreciate the lies, but were done believing you
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
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,
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
No comments to this song yet? Why?! It's seriously great, bit sloppy ending.. but overall it's really good.
The last minute and a half of this song is all beautiful. I don't know what you're talking about.
I had to post this, because the lyrics of this verse are so amazing, and they are wrong above. It should be:
We sit on our hands and watch it all fall. No one blinks an eye (eye eye eye). There’s not much worth saving. Just lots of buildings and concrete colored skies.
I don't know why this verse makes me smile so much, maybe I'm just insane, haha. Great song.
Electric President is AMAZING! And I agree cegli--it's a great verse.
i think the first verse is about the christian religion and the people who are agnostic possibly athiest and either they just dont believe in god or they believe that their can be no proof of his existence. and they're tired of waiting for god to return so they go crazy. and god and his disciples in heaven are just watching them go to war with each other. and god doesnt give any signs to them any warnings, he just quietly watches from above.
and then the "ship is sinking" part is possibly about how its the Apocalypse is coming and the people are freaking out. theyre like "shit, what have we done, what can we do?" and the next verse is about how God just watches the world fall apart and hes not going to save anyone, no one believed in him. and the line "we concrete the blue skies". is my favourite line in the song. its about how god closes off the skies and all of the non-believers will be left behind.
and the ending of the song. is about how god creates a new world Later. but then this world is exactly the same as our world. and they end up destroying that world as well.
well that's my interpretation, at least
by the way. the verse isnt what cegli says:
"We sit on our hands and watch it all fall. No one blinks an eye (eye eye eye). There’s not much worth saving. Just lots of buildings and concrete colored skies."
it really is:
"We sit on our hands and watched it all fall no one thinks that I I I I I theres not much worth saving just lots of buildings we concrete the blue skies"
i agree with cegli about the verse.. also it should be 'don't need opinions, just work them hands to bones' and 'our worth has all but passed...' either way, its still an awesome song :)
I agree with cegli too, we concrete the blue skies makes no sense, and no one blinks an eye makes much more sense in the context of the song.
I think its political sort of. Like we built this nation of mindless drones and teach our children to just shut up and let the authorities do what they want. So now we're headed to some kind of apocalyptic ending and there's not really any point in trying to rescue anything that's currently here. We might as well just toss it all out, because we don't believe the corporate or political lies any more (like, no one believes commercials or politicians) and that's most of what we seem to have founded ourselves on, when it was supposed to be so different. It sounds like he wants to scrap it all and start over.