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"
Okay so I was wrong about
My reasons for us fallin' out
Of love, I want to fall back in
My life is different now I swear
I know now what it means to care
About somebody other than myself
I know the things I said to you
They were untender and untrue
I'd like to see those things undo
So if you could find it in your heart
To give a man a second start
I promise things won't end the same
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
Okay so I have read the mail
The stories people often tell
About us that we never knew
But their existence will float away
And just like every word they say
And we will hold hands as they fade
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
I felt so sure of everything
My love to you so well received
And I just strutted 'round your town
Knowing I didn't let you down
The truth be known, the truth be told
My heart was always fairly cold
Posing to be as warm as yours
My way of getting in your world
But now I'm out and I've had time
To look around and think
And sink into another world
That's filled with guilt and overwhelming
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
And everyone they have a heart
And when they break and fall apart
They need somebody's helping hand
I used to say just let 'em fall
It wouldn't bother me at all
I couldn't help then, now I can
My reasons for us fallin' out
Of love, I want to fall back in
My life is different now I swear
I know now what it means to care
About somebody other than myself
I know the things I said to you
They were untender and untrue
I'd like to see those things undo
So if you could find it in your heart
To give a man a second start
I promise things won't end the same
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
Okay so I have read the mail
The stories people often tell
About us that we never knew
But their existence will float away
And just like every word they say
And we will hold hands as they fade
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
I felt so sure of everything
My love to you so well received
And I just strutted 'round your town
Knowing I didn't let you down
The truth be known, the truth be told
My heart was always fairly cold
Posing to be as warm as yours
My way of getting in your world
But now I'm out and I've had time
To look around and think
And sink into another world
That's filled with guilt and overwhelming
Shame, boatloads of shame
Day after day, more of the same
Blame, please lift it off
Please take it off, please make it stop
And everyone they have a heart
And when they break and fall apart
They need somebody's helping hand
I used to say just let 'em fall
It wouldn't bother me at all
I couldn't help then, now I can
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@ohtaintedlove
Clearly, you don't get what he is trying to say here. Since it would seem that he's talking about the start of the relationship, you can infer it's not about trying to mask remaining feelings for said person. More likely, he is referring to the depression and dark thoughts that he harbored (or overcame) to become the optimistic person that would seem more attractive outwardly to someone.
Making up... Nice and catchy!
It's not about making up, it's about WANTING to make up. It's about feeling regret and guilt for the first time, and hating yourself for it.
such good lyrics!
"The truth be known, the truth be told My heart was always fairly cold Posing to be as warm as yours My way of getting in your world"
I know that feeling. Pretending everything is fine, that you're not still hung up on that person. Walking around posing as someone who isn't broken. Hoping the person you loved will see you that way.
The Avett Brothers, more than anyone else, always make me feel like they write songs right out of my mind. This one especially, but most of them. They are amazing and being really specific about things that everybody goes through, I guess.
Let me preface this by saying I love this song. I just find this part funny
"The truth be known, the truth be told My heart was always fairly cold Posing to be as warm as yours My way of getting in your world"
It reminds me of Nacho Libre when Nacho is singing "I ate some bugs, I ate some grass I used my hands, to wipe my tears" where "ass" would finish the rhyme perfectly.
For "getting in your world" I picture "getting in your drawers" as fitting the rhyme better, so they get you thinking that and then change it up by not having it rhyme. I doubt this was their intention, but my mind always pictures that as the next line (although it shouldn't, I know). So anyway, that part always makes me smirk.
I have always thought it was intentionally meant to make you think he was going to sing "getting in your drawers". I hope it was.