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"
Oh cheeky cheeky
Oh naughty sneaky
You're so perceptive and I wonder how you knew.
But these finks don't walk too well
A bad sense of direction
And so they stumble round in threes
Such a strange collection.
Oh you headless chicken
Can those poor teeth take so much kicking?
You're always so charming
As you peck your way up there.
And these finks don't dress too well
No discrimination
To be a zombie all the time
Requires such dedication.
Oh please, sir will you let it go by
'Cause I failed both tests with my legs both tied
In my place the stuff is all there
I've been ever so sad for a very long time
My my they wanted the works can you this and that
I never got a letter back
More fool me bless my soul
More fool me bless my soul.
Oh perfect masters
They thrive on disasters
They all look so harmless
Till they find there way up there.
But dead finks don't talk too well
They've got a shaky sense of diction
It's not so much a living hell
It's just a dying fiction.
Oh naughty sneaky
You're so perceptive and I wonder how you knew.
But these finks don't walk too well
A bad sense of direction
And so they stumble round in threes
Such a strange collection.
Oh you headless chicken
Can those poor teeth take so much kicking?
You're always so charming
As you peck your way up there.
And these finks don't dress too well
No discrimination
To be a zombie all the time
Requires such dedication.
Oh please, sir will you let it go by
'Cause I failed both tests with my legs both tied
In my place the stuff is all there
I've been ever so sad for a very long time
My my they wanted the works can you this and that
I never got a letter back
More fool me bless my soul
More fool me bless my soul.
Oh perfect masters
They thrive on disasters
They all look so harmless
Till they find there way up there.
But dead finks don't talk too well
They've got a shaky sense of diction
It's not so much a living hell
It's just a dying fiction.
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Brian Eno said that when he read the lyrics after writing the song, he noted that this song was about Bryan Ferry.
It is and it isn't. Here's what Eno said about it:
“Dead Finks Don’t Talk” is the most randomly generated of my songs. I wrote the lyrics at home with my girl-friend with a cassette of the backing track from the studio. I sang whatever came into my mind as the song played through. Frequently they’re just nonsense words or syllables. First I try for the correct phonetic sound rather than the verbal meaning. Off the top I was singing ‘oh-dee-dow-gubba-ring-ge-dow.’ So I recorded these rubbish words and then I turned them back into words. It’s the exact opposite of the technique used in phonetic poetry where words are changed into pure sounds. I take sounds and change them into words.
“Dead Finks” is not about Bryan Ferry. After all the music was recorded and the words written, Chris Thomas (my producer and Roxy’s as well) said, ‘You’ll get me shot for that track. It’s obviously about Bryan.’ So I listened back to it and it obviously was. It was certainly something I hadn’t realized. Essentially all these songs have no meaning that I invested in them. Meanings can be generated within their own frame-work. It may be a very esoteric thing to talk about but I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question.
serendipitous assemblage of vocal timbres + a prosody to go with every instance. particularly fond of "perfect Masters" synthetic baritone.
I wonder how it could be about Brian Ferry?
The Ferry story is very interesting. The subconscious is a powerful thing. For me, however, the lyrics always seem to suggest politicians, lobbyists, and professional sycophants. Or as Jay Besemer put it: "powerful crooks posing as victims, self-sanctifying enablers stroking egos on the imaginary route to their heaven."
It even sounds like he's doing an impression of Ferry on the line: "As you peck your way up there".