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"
We know that we could sell your magazines
If only you would give your life to literature just
Don't read Jane Eyre!
Work on your algebra
And stand out in the rain
And give yourself to simple pleasures but
Never play card games!
Meanwhile, back at home
Not in communist Russia
Well only on my headphones
We plot our march onto the town hall
And if we'd take prisoners
Or simply simper at those fools
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Tonight we're gonna smash this place up
And then we're gonna deck it out with fairy lights till
We are content!
And then we'll maybe drown in Dewey decimals
But leave our shoes off at the door 'cause
That was the point!
Of us at home with the moon
Pouring through the curtains
Working on our attitude
Towards the second hand book shop employees
Reading the inscriptions
That were never meant for their eyes
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
I'm stitching up each one of your pockets
So when we are together you'll maybe look a little less bored
I'm sticking your fingers into sockets
To kick-start your little heart and maybe sleep a tiny bit more
Oh maybe we should read more into the books that we adore
Perhaps we should drink less vitamin c
And now I'm shouting out in capital letters
"I will throw you high fives if you keep your own secrets!!"
If only you would give your life to literature just
Don't read Jane Eyre!
Work on your algebra
And stand out in the rain
And give yourself to simple pleasures but
Never play card games!
Meanwhile, back at home
Not in communist Russia
Well only on my headphones
We plot our march onto the town hall
And if we'd take prisoners
Or simply simper at those fools
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Tonight we're gonna smash this place up
And then we're gonna deck it out with fairy lights till
We are content!
And then we'll maybe drown in Dewey decimals
But leave our shoes off at the door 'cause
That was the point!
Of us at home with the moon
Pouring through the curtains
Working on our attitude
Towards the second hand book shop employees
Reading the inscriptions
That were never meant for their eyes
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
Please don't tell me to do the math
I'm stitching up each one of your pockets
So when we are together you'll maybe look a little less bored
I'm sticking your fingers into sockets
To kick-start your little heart and maybe sleep a tiny bit more
Oh maybe we should read more into the books that we adore
Perhaps we should drink less vitamin c
And now I'm shouting out in capital letters
"I will throw you high fives if you keep your own secrets!!"
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I think that this is definitely about the hypocrisy of authority figures in young peoples lives, particularly the education system. I know for a fact that in America this is the case, because they try to stop us from reading certain books before we study them in class but then they encourage a love of reading. They strongly advise us against reading "Catcher in the Rye" and "Jane Eyre" and any number of other great, classic books because there is a vague possibility that we will study them later on.
The song is about using the things we learn in books to take over the establishment. In the end it tells us that maybe we should all just read what we want to, which can also be taken to mean that we should govern our own lives and do whatever we wish. The last line though is funny because it says we should keep it all to ourselves, perhaps the establishment can't handle the thought of rebellion? Perhaps making it public is futile? It reminds me a bit of Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984 who has to keep any telling expressions of free thought to himself. Ironic that the idea can be found in the books themselves. =D