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"
How was I to know
What was wrong with you
When you kept it to yourself,
Feeling tortured, needing help?
So you said you were so unsure
Of how you felt
But you said you were in love,
How could that not be enough?
So you kept making me feel like
Every single thing's my fault.
When I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Instead you've broken me.
Contemplating life without you here
I took your picture off the wall,
Watch the ashtray getting full, and so I
Walk through empty rooms that smell of you,
Find the tape you made for me
Spelling out how life should be,
If only you were listening closer
Maybe you would understand,
That I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me.
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree.
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Did you ever know, did you, ever, ever know,
What it took to love you?
Now you'll never know what you had,
By/but (?) letting go.
Now you're on your own where you've only got you.
Now you're on your own where you've only got you.
I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me.
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Instead you've broken me
What was wrong with you
When you kept it to yourself,
Feeling tortured, needing help?
So you said you were so unsure
Of how you felt
But you said you were in love,
How could that not be enough?
So you kept making me feel like
Every single thing's my fault.
When I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Instead you've broken me.
Contemplating life without you here
I took your picture off the wall,
Watch the ashtray getting full, and so I
Walk through empty rooms that smell of you,
Find the tape you made for me
Spelling out how life should be,
If only you were listening closer
Maybe you would understand,
That I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me.
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree.
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Did you ever know, did you, ever, ever know,
What it took to love you?
Now you'll never know what you had,
By/but (?) letting go.
Now you're on your own where you've only got you.
Now you're on your own where you've only got you.
I've been trying so damn hard to be
Everything you want from me.
You said that I'd be fine,
I disagree
'Cause I've seen all the things you hid from me
They filled my life with jealousy
If you wanted blood I'd cut myself in three
Instead you've broken me
Lyrics submitted by Lillyfusel
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The Night We Met
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Cajun Girl
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The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
No Surprises
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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.
Plastic Bag
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
I'm surprised at this coming from Matt Willis. It's kinda different from what I'm used to hearing from him, but it's fucking good. And it describes a painful relationship I was in recently. It's perfect