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"
There's blood in the sink and he's plunging his wrists in
A hangover halo is washing away
Mechanic-school dropout stares into the mirror
Stands up in his derelict daydreams
Always too tall, always walked around wearing
A smile that was never quite sure of itself
Planning a future of failures inflicted
In phone calls from strip clubs and bail bonds
There's a light left on
There's a pace to our direction
There's a movie still
Of a heart I'd like to mention
Don't give me that look, I looked harder than most did
Let details like sharp nails punch holes in my shoes
Soft-traced to frown as I put the receiver down
Where do I go for a pardon?
There's a light left on
There's a pace to our direction
There's a movie still
Of a heart I'd like to mention
We're listing what's left
A signed Slayer t-shirt
A car up on blocks in his mother's backyard
A hangover halo is washing away
Mechanic-school dropout stares into the mirror
Stands up in his derelict daydreams
Always too tall, always walked around wearing
A smile that was never quite sure of itself
Planning a future of failures inflicted
In phone calls from strip clubs and bail bonds
There's a light left on
There's a pace to our direction
There's a movie still
Of a heart I'd like to mention
Don't give me that look, I looked harder than most did
Let details like sharp nails punch holes in my shoes
Soft-traced to frown as I put the receiver down
Where do I go for a pardon?
There's a light left on
There's a pace to our direction
There's a movie still
Of a heart I'd like to mention
We're listing what's left
A signed Slayer t-shirt
A car up on blocks in his mother's backyard
Lyrics submitted by sockmonkey
History to the Defeated Lyrics as written by Stephen Carroll John K Samson
Lyrics © MOTHERSHIP MUSIC PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The Night We Met
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
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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.
"The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon." -W.H.Auden March 1937
This is a terribly depressing song!
lol, i love depressing songs. :P so ja, this is one of my favorites of the weakerthans. such a droopy sad song -- the title says it all. "Don't give me that look, I looked harder than most did, let details like sharp nails punch holes in my shoes."
i have a huge mp3 collection... and every week i still put on an all weakerthans shuffle, then just listen to the lyrics and sing along in a bad falsetto. they're like old friends.
This is a really great song lyrically and I understand their reasoning for making it slow.. but it gets a bit repetitive & boring by the end. Still, a good song and an even greater album overall.
John played this solo in Germany in 2009.
"This one I wrote a long time ago. I was in a border town in Texas. I was walking around the streets of this border town, El Paso. I was walking around and I saw a man weeping in a phone booth and I thought that was strange. And then I noticed almost everywhere all the storefronts around the center of this town were Bail Bonds. And you don't have those here, and we don't have them in Canada. But it's where people go when their loved ones are in prison and they give over anything they own in collateral to get their loved one out of jail. This song is about that man who was weeping the phone booth. "
i can't believe no one's commented..the weakerthans are awesome.
i am absolutely in love with the weakerthans
This song is slow and sad, but I really love it.