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"
Be still for a second while I try and try to pin your flowers on
La, la, la, la, la
Can you carry my drink, I have everything else
I can tie my tie all by myself
I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why
Oh, we're so disarming, darling, everything we did believe
Is diving, diving, diving, diving off the balcony
Tired and wired, we ruin too easy
Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
Hold ourselves together
With our arms around the stereo for hours
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
While it sings to itself or whatever it does
When it sings to itself of its long lost loves
I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why
Tired and wired, we ruin too easy
Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
And I'll be with you, behind the couch
When they come on a different day, just like this one
We'll stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days
We'll stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz
So worry not, all things are well
We'll be alright, we have our looks and perfume
Stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz
So worry not, all things are well
We'll be alright, we have our looks and perfume on
La, la, la, la, la
Can you carry my drink, I have everything else
I can tie my tie all by myself
I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why
Oh, we're so disarming, darling, everything we did believe
Is diving, diving, diving, diving off the balcony
Tired and wired, we ruin too easy
Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
Hold ourselves together
With our arms around the stereo for hours
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
While it sings to itself or whatever it does
When it sings to itself of its long lost loves
I'm getting tied, I'm forgetting why
Tired and wired, we ruin too easy
Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
And I'll be with you, behind the couch
When they come on a different day, just like this one
We'll stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days
We'll stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz
So worry not, all things are well
We'll be alright, we have our looks and perfume
Stay inside till somebody finds us
Do whatever the TV tells us
Stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz
So worry not, all things are well
We'll be alright, we have our looks and perfume on
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I’ve been having real issues interpreting this song because it’s so easy to do contradictory readings of the thing. This is one version, I might post one of the opposites sometime. This is closer to what I feel about it right now though.
‘Be still for a second while I try and try to pin your flowers on’
The girl is restless while he wants to take the time to do the little things that may or may not matter, the little gestures that can easily slip unnoticed. It shows the difference in their personalities. She can’t stay still while he can take the extra time for something insignificant.
‘Can you carry my drink I have everything else I can tie my tie all by myself’
He tries to take on too much responsibility, either because he doesn’t trust her to do these things or he thinks he has to.
‘I’m getting tired/tied, I’m forgetting why’
If he’s unsure about getting tied then he has doubts about the relationship and can’t work out what to do. He keeps taking things further and doesn’t know how to get out. If he isn’t sure why he’s getting tired then it’s because he thinks things should be easier with the person you’re with.
‘Oh we’re so disarming darling,’
They had their doubts about the relationship from the start but stuck with it anyway to see what happened. Either that or they just allayed any fears they had and rushed straight in, believing that if it was meant to be then things would work out.
‘everything we did believe is diving diving diving diving off the balcony’
They had certain ideas about love and relationships and now they’ve moved in together all of those ideals are flying out of the window.
‘Tired and wired we ruin too easy’
As someone said in a previous comment, maybe ‘we ruin to easy’ means that they’re letting things affect them that would never have made a difference before. They aren’t resilient enough as a couple.
‘sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave’
I get an image of two people laying back to back in bed, touching but only barely. There’s a coldness between them that was never there before. They’re waiting for the bad times to pass so that they can be how they were before. But they aren’t doing anything about it, they’re just ‘waiting’ and hoping.
‘Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours While it sings to itself or whatever it does when it sings to itself of its long lost loves’
They rely on modern technology to keep together. They can just sit and listen to the stereo and not have to communicate – the stereo does it for them.
‘but I’ll be with you behind the couch when they come on a different day just like this one’
On another day, in better times, they’d be fine. They’d be huddled up close together. They’d get over the trivial problems but right now they’re struggling.
‘We’ll stay inside til somebody finds us do whatever the TV tells us stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days’
Again, relying on anything that prevents them from having to communicate. In the beginning of the song they were going out and having fun. Now they can’t even be bothered to do that. They’d rather watch TV and construct a ‘rosy-minded fuzz’. Perhaps optimistic that TV can help when in a rut?
‘so worry not all things are well we’ll be alright we have our looks and perfume’
Sounds very sarcastic to me, as if they have everything they need in their ‘rosy-minded fuzz’. Could be the break-up – ‘it’s okay, we’re young and good-looking, we’ll find other people’
This is the point of their writing, they want you to be able to interpret the song in your own way and put yourself in it, while at the same time, an original meaning stays intact.