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 In eighteen-hundred and-forty-four
Of March the eighteenth day
We hoisted our colours to the top of the mast
And for Greenland bore away, brave boys
And for Greenland bore away
The lookout on the mainmast he stood
His spyglass in his hand
"There's a whale, there's a whale, there's a whalefish" he cried
"And she blows at every span, brave boys
And she blows at every span"
The captain stood on the quarter deck
The ice was in his eye
"Overhaul, overhaul, let your jib sheets fall
And go put your boats to sea, brave boys
And go put your boats to sea"
The boats were lowered and the men aboard
The whale was full at view
Resolved, resolved was each whalerman bold
For to steer where the whalefish blew, brave boys
For to steer where the whalefish blew
The harpoon struck and the line paid out
With a single flourish of his tail
He capsized our boat and we lost five men
And we did not catch that whale, brave boys
And we did not catch that whale
The losin' of those five jolly men
It grieved out captain sore
But the losin' of that sperm whale fish
Now it grieved him ten times more, brave boys
Now it grieved him ten times more
"Up anchor now" our captain he cried
"For the winter stars do appear
And it's time that we left this cold country
And for the England we will steer, brave boys
And for the England we will steer"
Well, Greenland is a barren land
A land that bears no green
Where there's ice and snow and the whalefishes blow
And the daylight's seldom seen, brave boys
And the daylight's seldom seen
Of March the eighteenth day
We hoisted our colours to the top of the mast
And for Greenland bore away, brave boys
And for Greenland bore away
The lookout on the mainmast he stood
His spyglass in his hand
"There's a whale, there's a whale, there's a whalefish" he cried
"And she blows at every span, brave boys
And she blows at every span"
The captain stood on the quarter deck
The ice was in his eye
"Overhaul, overhaul, let your jib sheets fall
And go put your boats to sea, brave boys
And go put your boats to sea"
The boats were lowered and the men aboard
The whale was full at view
Resolved, resolved was each whalerman bold
For to steer where the whalefish blew, brave boys
For to steer where the whalefish blew
The harpoon struck and the line paid out
With a single flourish of his tail
He capsized our boat and we lost five men
And we did not catch that whale, brave boys
And we did not catch that whale
The losin' of those five jolly men
It grieved out captain sore
But the losin' of that sperm whale fish
Now it grieved him ten times more, brave boys
Now it grieved him ten times more
"Up anchor now" our captain he cried
"For the winter stars do appear
And it's time that we left this cold country
And for the England we will steer, brave boys
And for the England we will steer"
Well, Greenland is a barren land
A land that bears no green
Where there's ice and snow and the whalefishes blow
And the daylight's seldom seen, brave boys
And the daylight's seldom seen
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
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