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 hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
Sorry to be so short with you
But I'm tapped
But I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your smug advertisements
of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not
justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type
Does the Home Secretary have the barest faintest inkling of what's going down?
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your amug advertisements
Of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I do you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you
You Gretchen Franklin thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I HEAR YOU TELEPHONE THING
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
Sorry to be so short with you
But I'm tapped
But I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your smug advertisements
of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not
justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type
Does the Home Secretary have the barest faintest inkling of what's going down?
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your amug advertisements
Of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I do you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you
You Gretchen Franklin thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I HEAR YOU TELEPHONE THING
Lyrics submitted by Major Valor
Telephone Thing Lyrics as written by Mark Edward Smith Jonathan Richard More
Lyrics © MUSIC & MEDIA INT'L, INC., BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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I don't know know anyone who likes this song.
Except me.
I certainly like this song. It seems he is expressing a phone paranoia, a paranoia of the interconnectedness it brings, and the lack of privacy with that. Perhaps about phones, or everything in general. In a sort of Luddite like way.
By the way the reference to Gretchen Franklin supposedly was an accident as quoted from here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Franklin
"In Fall song 'Telephone Thing', Mark E Smith repeatedly asks 'How dare you assume I would want to parlez-vous with you? You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type.' In an interview for the NME Mark E Smith revealed that he had thought he had made the name up and that it wasn't a reference to this Gretchen Franklin '
It seems she is a pretty prominent British actress. I wonder if it really was an accident or if he just said that to throw people off.