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"
Stalker's my whole style
And if I get caught, I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Today you're twenty-five
I made you something fine
It's in the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about and
I'm proud
I've been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name
In wedding bells, will I look better or will I look the same?
Rotting in hell
You're the only proper noun I need, hurry
My copper crown's gone green
Pull me
Pull me on out of this tree, I'm stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between two things unclear to me
Are you a female young messiah?
For stow always and dugouts
And are you, what church folk mean by the good news
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look in the rearview
Clicking the button on your U-Haul pen
Don't pretend you didn't see me coming 'round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped horns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel Benz
Stalker's my whole style and if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Twenty-five carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand
It's out, you're mostly what I think about
And if I get caught, I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Today you're twenty-five
I made you something fine
It's in the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about and
I'm proud
I've been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name
In wedding bells, will I look better or will I look the same?
Rotting in hell
You're the only proper noun I need, hurry
My copper crown's gone green
Pull me
Pull me on out of this tree, I'm stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between two things unclear to me
Are you a female young messiah?
For stow always and dugouts
And are you, what church folk mean by the good news
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look in the rearview
Clicking the button on your U-Haul pen
Don't pretend you didn't see me coming 'round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped horns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel Benz
Stalker's my whole style and if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Twenty-five carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand
It's out, you're mostly what I think about
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I tried researching the name in the title. Yoni also references the name in Brook and Waxing: "...if some divine Simon spoke..."
The name Simeon on Wiki comes up with two biblical figures, one Old Testament and one New Testament. The one from the Old Testament, which I thought would be a more likely influence for Yoni, was fearless and ruthless. However, what I found interesting was that the Simeon in the New Testament shares his saint's day with Prophetess Anna; the name Anna shows up in at least two other songs on the album.
And, as with many other songs on the album, Yoni references going to hell. "Will I look better, or will I look the same rotting in hell?" is my favorite line in the song, possibly on the whole album. Maybe in his days of fretting over this girl, his sleepless nights, he has become stressed, haggard, ugly. It just hard to imagine rotting in hell as an improvement, but that's why the line is so beautiful.
I think that the 'divine simon' in Brook and Waxing is a comparison between god and simon says. Little different name, too. Interesting ideas though.
It's about a stalker. I think consumergrade said it was about a break-up Yoni had, which makes perfect sense. This clearly gives it away:
or are you giving me a dirty look in the rear view clicking the button on your u-haul pen don't pretend you didn't see me coming round the bend on my fixie with the chopped horns turned in trailing behind your biodiesel benz
He's following her as she's moving out but acts as if she hadn't seen him following her on his bike.
It's a beautiful song. It's so clever. I can't get over the meshing of the relatively heavy subject material with a very light hearted sound.
I hate to sound like a stalker, but I think most people have been absolutely taken by an individual and sort of go out of the way to see them at some place or "creep" on them over MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, what have you. The entire subject of stalking is taboo, obviously, but most people tend to have a tendency. The tendency has degrees.
But, my point, it's what makes the song beautiful. Most people know the feeling.
The fact that he is talking about the one in the old testament doesn't surprise me, he was raised Jewish.
just kidding this song is about stalking.
No one has mentioned this yet but the lines
"Twenty-five carved with a butter knife On the palm of my new hand, it's out"
echoing the beginning of the song, revealing what his birthday present to her in his hand was (Today you're twenty-five, I made you something fine It's in the palm of my new hand, it's out) imply he has carved her age into his hand for her. I think the fact that he carves into his hand - a pretty permenant and serious action - something as obviously changing and momentary a thing as AGE I think shows his inability to let go of the past. He doesn't permenantly carve something like her name- something that would be more permenant, but something that will change in just a year... He wants to keep hold (literally haha) of something that will inevitably change and will definitely no longer be true soon, which is the same as the fact that although the relationship is over it's changed, he wants it forever. He clings onto the past.. OR EVEN he doesn't believe in the past - he almost doesn't really believe her age will change, not if he does carves it into his hand and makes it permanent, in the same way he doesn't believe the relationship has ended (or ever will) if he keeps it alive to himself, even if that means stalking her, etc. He also treats the gesture as a birthday present to her. Maybe he thinks him not letting go of the past, trying to hold on to this stuff is a dedication to her, that by stalking her and not letting go, he is doing it for her, as a kind gesture.
I guess it's up to the person reading which analysis is more relevant, I think it kinda works being a combination of all of them, that he just can't really face reality or change and he is putting her up there as a goddess (are you a young female messiah?) almost with a kind of shrine to her, and what he thinks are nice gestures... engraving her into himself to MAKE it real, to make it/her stay (despite the end that will and has already happened)
beautiful song!!
i was excited to be the first one to upload all the new why? lyrics.
nope.
this song, to me, seems like someone who has yet to completely get over a girl, maybe. probably one of my favorites thus far.
Yoni rides a fixie!
okay, so even though this song is about a stalker, i find it quite endearing.
"are you a female young messiah" gets me every time.
I love Yoni's voice when he sings "but i still hear your name in wedding bells..." especially how it fluctuates at "name." These moments of subtle genius make Why? so special.
I love the reference to his bicycle. "on my fixie with the chopped horns turned" is a reference to his fixed gear bicycle with a common handlebar modification.