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"
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and we ain't get exploited
White man ain't feared so he did not destroy it
We ain't work for free, see they had to employ it
Built it up together so we equally appointed
First four hundred years, see we actually enjoyed it
Constitution written by the W.E.B. Du Bois
Were no reconstructions, Civil War got avoided
Little black Sambo grows up to be a lawyer
Extra extra on the news stands
Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan
Malcolm little dies as a old man
Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him
Followed by Bill O'Reilly who read from the Quran
President Bush sends condolences from Iran
Where FOX News reports live
That Ahmadinejad wins Mandela peace prize
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and it ain't no projects
Keepin' it real is not an understood concept
Yea, complexion's not a contest
Cause racism has no context
Hip hop ain't got a section called conscious
Everybody rappin' like crack never happened
Crips never occurred no Bloods to attack them
Matter of fact no hood to attack in
Somalia is a great place to relax in
Fred Astaire was the first to do a backspin
The Rat Pack was cool group of black men
That inspired five white guys called The Jacksons
Eminem fitted in but then again
He inspired a black rapper tryin' to mimic him
And that's what really rose up out of Michigan,
The sign of white rapper by the name of 50 Cent, ha!
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and I know it's just a fantasy
I cordially invite you to ask why can't it be?
Now we can't do nothing bout the past
But we can do something about the future that we have
We can make fast or we can make it last
Every woman Queenin' and every man a King an'
When those color lines come we can't see between
We just close our eyes 'til it's all black everything!
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
All black everything
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and we ain't get exploited
White man ain't feared so he did not destroy it
We ain't work for free, see they had to employ it
Built it up together so we equally appointed
First four hundred years, see we actually enjoyed it
Constitution written by the W.E.B. Du Bois
Were no reconstructions, Civil War got avoided
Little black Sambo grows up to be a lawyer
Extra extra on the news stands
Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan
Malcolm little dies as a old man
Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him
Followed by Bill O'Reilly who read from the Quran
President Bush sends condolences from Iran
Where FOX News reports live
That Ahmadinejad wins Mandela peace prize
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and it ain't no projects
Keepin' it real is not an understood concept
Yea, complexion's not a contest
Cause racism has no context
Hip hop ain't got a section called conscious
Everybody rappin' like crack never happened
Crips never occurred no Bloods to attack them
Matter of fact no hood to attack in
Somalia is a great place to relax in
Fred Astaire was the first to do a backspin
The Rat Pack was cool group of black men
That inspired five white guys called The Jacksons
Eminem fitted in but then again
He inspired a black rapper tryin' to mimic him
And that's what really rose up out of Michigan,
The sign of white rapper by the name of 50 Cent, ha!
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
Uh, and I know it's just a fantasy
I cordially invite you to ask why can't it be?
Now we can't do nothing bout the past
But we can do something about the future that we have
We can make fast or we can make it last
Every woman Queenin' and every man a King an'
When those color lines come we can't see between
We just close our eyes 'til it's all black everything!
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there wasn't no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything
All black everything
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The Night We Met
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Radiohead
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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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
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.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
The meaning of this song is pretty straightforward. Lupe begins by dreaming of a world very different from today. Basically all the examples he states are opposites of today. Lupe ends the song with the meaning of the whole song...
"Uh, and I know it's just a fantasy I cordially invite you to ask why can't it be Now we can do nothing bout the past But we can do something about the future that we have We can make fast or we can make it last"
Basically, if we want the world to be a better place, we have to act upon it rather than dwell on the past.