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 left me here
What am I supposed to do?
I never dared to look inside
Just like you told me to
I'm going into you again
I know you saw it too
And I will keep myself awake
I know what's coming
I feel it's reaching through
There is no moving past
There is no better place
There is no future point in time
We will not get away
The world is bleeding out
It folds itself in two
Behind the background world
It's always bleeding through
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
Are you sure
What am I supposed to do?
I never dared to look inside
Just like you told me to
I'm going into you again
I know you saw it too
And I will keep myself awake
I know what's coming
I feel it's reaching through
There is no moving past
There is no better place
There is no future point in time
We will not get away
The world is bleeding out
It folds itself in two
Behind the background world
It's always bleeding through
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
(This is what you want?)
Are you sure
Are you sure
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher, edited by 7shadesofblack
The Background World Lyrics as written by Trent Reznor
Lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
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I think Trent writes a lot of songs about himself, and his inner self. As if he is aware that he is just a driver within his body and the mind is his passenger, and both are within his body (the vessel). His mind and himself (the driver) have a companionship/relationship as two separate entities within the vessel. Visualizing this, myself, I imagine this song is about the driver and the mind reluctantly taking too deep of a dive into their memory and battling to swim back up into the reality of the present time and move on with life.
"You left me here -at the bottom- What am I supposed to do? I never dared to look inside -the memories- Just like you told me to -driver recollecting the minds advice to not go back - I'm going into you again - driver dwelling on the memory- I know you saw it, too - driver doesn't understand the minds reluctance- And I will keep myself awake -driver will dwell on the memory- I know what’s coming -drivers awareness of the consequences- I feel it reaching through There is no moving past There is no better place There is no future point in time We will not get away" -driver accepting his fate, he will remain in the memory-
-the driver is talking to the mind, through all of this. He has already gone too deep, and he is giving the mind excuses to not move forward
"The world is bleeding out It folds itself in two Behind, the background world Is always bleeding through"
-the narrator is explaining that the mind and the driver are struggling to piece their world back together because of inner turmoil from the memory
"Are you sure (This is what you want?) Hard as you try not to see it"
The loop at the end signifies the vessels routine through daily life.. a constant repeat of the same mundane and insignificant life, every day until the end because of something the driver could not let die within the mind.
I hope all this makes sense and the formatting comes out okay.
@heuchelei <br /> <br /> This sounds pretty accurate. <br /> I live with depersonalization disorder, and it’s extremely common to think to myself in the internal conversations as ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. It’s very hard to put it in to words where it feels like inner thoughts come from the a. Self who operates in daily life, or the ‘doer’, and the b. Actual internal identity, the intellectual self ‘the thinker’. <br /> <br /> Basically the thinker does not get to act directly with the world and exists in the background. The doer interacts with the world around, but feels more like an empty husk, or some sort of automation that follows orders. <br /> <br /> The weird part about depersonalization disorder is the longer it goes on, the less you think about it, and the less you think about it, then it goes away. When you remember the disorder, it comes back, but it goes away when it gets distant and quiet, and you forget it exists.<br /> <br /> This is exactly what this song sounds like.
This song sounds like a relationship coming to an end. It is not because of a lack of love in the relationship. It is because the world around them creates situations that destroy their relationship. They keep trying to build barriers between them and the rest of the world so the relationship can exist in a vacuum, and no matter how hard they try, it does not work.
It has exhausted them and they go their own ways.
"I'm going into you again" sounds like a key change , or notes in 'sharp' which sounds pretty uncomfortable. I think this is the early stage of admitting a relationship is coming to an end, where he tries to fight it and it drives him crazy, perhaps making everything worse.
"There is no future point in time" sounds like the line has a slight echo it. I think it's because he realizes he is actually alone in the relationship and the other person has exited the 'safe room' they constructed. I think he wants her, but she has already moved on.
"The world is bleeding out It folds itself in two"
I believe this is referring to the isolated world they tried to create to protect their relationship. That was their world, and it is slowly dying around them. It has folded in two, because it has been cut in half. There is one person in that world, not two.
"Are you sure (This is what you want?) Hard as you try not to see it"
I love this part very much. She has said she needs some space to think things over, she wants to be with him but wants space. There's a little duality here: He does not fight her about it, he wants to be with her, but he is not asking her to stay, it sounds more like he is saying 'be careful what you wish for'. She keeps saying it's not over, and he says yes it is.
I think after this, the song gets the most interesting. It repeats for a long time like there relationship repeats in his head. The loop has a pause on purpose because he re-plays it, he keeps going through the motions, and the more he re-plays it the more it goes away. I think the length of time it re-plays until it is indecipherable (until he does not care anymore) may actually indicate time in real life, how it translates, I'm not sure, but point is everything eventually disappears.
Either he is replaying the memories, or they keep going through the same thing over and over again until it is completely gone.
the song sounds about 83 beats per minute, which is about the speed of a resting heartbeat, so I assume he goes through this strikingly calm despite what he endures and like other songs, indicates he has a depersonalization disorder if this was intended to symbolize his heartbeat, because he is just watching it happen like an observer rather than making himself a participant.
Oh yeah, and these lyrics: "The world is bleeding out It folds itself in two Behind the background world Its always bleeding through"
Sound like they are coming from behind a door, it is a little muffled, kind of like listening in to a phone call in the next room. I think there is a combination of things being said here. She is on the other side of the barrier, but I think this final resolution is based on hearing a conversation.
"Are you sure" Is clearer because he is "present", participating in events rather than observing.
@kitty11193 100%.\r\n\r\nMy marriage ended this way, and I didn\'t correlate it with the lyrics of this song until that happened.\r\n\r\nAt 4:02 is when it ends. Everything after that is the loop of the section after the first time "Are you sure?" degrading until it means nothing anymore, and becomes noise that\'s a part of the background world.
I think the background world is the dark reality of how the world really is.
About the impossibility of going back to the concept of home and the inevitable (but oft-denied) march towards decay and death and end of things. The degenerative looping track at the end supports this interpretation as well.
The roller coaster ride of marriage...
I feel like this isn't about love or life at all caw caw.
Of more of less made for people who aren't seen by people in society caw caw. Like dumpster divers caw caw, you know they exist caw caw, but you never pay attention to them caw caw. I happen to be a dumpster diver.
The phrase "the background world" instantly makes me think of the concept in Quantum Physics known as the "Implicate and Explicate orders" as described by David Bohm.
The Explicate order refers to the world we see around us, which is seemingly composed of "physical matter"
The Implicate order is "the background world" that Trent refers to. According to physicists, the universe exists PRIMARILY as "waveform information", and when these waves are intercepted by a conscious observer (you), they are "decoded" into physical matter and are then available to be seen, touched, et c.
If the background world is slowly bleeding through, I would take that to mean that he is experiencing what is known as Synchronicity.
Synchronicity refers to a theory in which the unseen "connections" (on the level of the implicate order) between the things that we see as "separate" objects.
For instance, if you hear a strange word that you've never heard one day from a colleague and then you soon after read it in the newspaper, and then you overhear someone else making a big deal of what a weird word that is. The odds of all those mentions being a totally random coincidence is quite low. However when you consider that the entire universe exists as an unbroken "pool" of "waves" that must be decoded by us before we can experience it... Then you can see that there is a possibility that they aren't "random coincidences", instead, the "BACKGROUND WORLD IS SLOWLY BLEEDING THROUGH" meaning that the unseen links between seemingly unconnected things or events are accidentally showing themselves.
As for "are you sure, this is what you want"... This could mean that he explored this idea, or has even taken psychedelics which tend to reveal aspects of "the background world" and now he is unable to see the world like he used to, as a solid, 3-d matter-filled universe.
The realisation that the universe is not as solid as we often believe, can be quite unsettling to some. You may wonder if you are even "real" if you consider "real" to mean "always made of solid matter".
Overall, this song seems to capture the feelings of someone who is in a state where they are unsure of what is "real"... Either due to psychosis, ingestion of psychedelics, or as a result of contemplating the implications of the discoveries of quantum physics.
Good One@the:32741dile
Absolute Zero
youtu.be/fh7Z9HCyQyk
youtu.be/fh7Z9HCyQyk it is absolutely this for me.