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"
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see
What's my name, what's my station? Oh, just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you
Or bow down and be grateful and say, "Sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me
And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see
If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak
Yeah I'm tongue-tied and dizzy and I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues, why should I wait for anyone else?
And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm raw
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
And you would wait tables and soon run the store
Gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
Someday I'll be like the man on the screen
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see
What's my name, what's my station? Oh, just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you
Or bow down and be grateful and say, "Sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me
And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see
If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak
Yeah I'm tongue-tied and dizzy and I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues, why should I wait for anyone else?
And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm raw
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
And you would wait tables and soon run the store
Gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
If I had an orchard, I'd work 'til I'm sore
Someday I'll be like the man on the screen
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Great version of a great song,
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"And now after some thinking I'd say I'd rather be A functioning cog in some great machinery Serving something beyond me"
doesn't sound like "It's about not wanting to be a part of the society that would subject the singer's golden-haired angel to a life of worker's servitude, 'running the store'." (fgevilmonkey)
Working in a store. Farming. Wanting to be a "A functioning cog in some great machinery". It sounds like he wants and likes playing a meaningful role of piety in society.
I agree with Bryceing, although I would say that the song focuses a lot on the conflict between what we are told to be and what we would like to be. Uniqueness is often played up when we are young because our parents have aspirations that we will do wonderful and amazing things in a non-traditional sense. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. And sometimes we do great things, even though they may seem simple, boring and traditional. <br /> <br /> Regardless, I think sometimes it's easy to feel like the speaker in the song, where you just want to be a cog in the machine because it's simpler. You want to be like the man on the screen because that's what everyone else seems to like, or because you want to revert back to an old purity that seems to be lost today. But, I think this song focuses on the conflict between those two viewpoints, hence "I don't know who to believe." Then the song shifts, and the narrator decides it is better to take charge rather than sing the "helplessness blues." His choice seems to be in favor of conformity, or at least a preference for a simple life of hard-work and a monogamous, one true love type lifestyle. Ironically, in this day and age, the so-called conformist choice is actually harder to come by (IMO). When the speaker refers to the man on the screen, I envision that he's striving to be like the ideal often portrayed by men in old black-and-white films. There's also a nice undertone of the conflict between mechanized labor and good old-fashioned sweat and earth. The narrator and his love seem to strike a balance between these two, and a balance between conformity and uniqueness. Just some thoughts. I could develop them even more, but this isn't a thesis paper; besides, I've already written far too much. :-)
Just wanted to reply because I agree with you so much :)
It's nice to see somebody not immediately jump to the anti-conformity interpretation. I agree with you; it's more complicated than that.