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"
The first part of every day for me is good
I've got the bus stop in my neighborhood
And everything's on purpose everywhere they go
Hiding in my car and running in the snow
Running with the friends they'll know for years
I've seen it all from here, from here
It happens every day, before they go to school
They play until the bus drives up beside my lawn
And there's always been a mother who waits 'til they are gone
Then she turns away
It happens every day
Noon comes and turns this campus upside down
I watch the students in this college town
You would think they're carefree, I have seen their trials
Frowning into Shakespeare and practicing their smiles
Even underlining Nabokov
When I am not in love, in love
It happens every day with their journals in cafes
Looking up at their reflection on the other wall
With every new idea wondering if they've changed at all
And then they look away
It happens every day
Well life is as hard and as easy as they say
Walking the steps we've chosen on this day
Some will be outrageous, some have rarely shown
Some will walk in couples, some will walk alone
As I think about the world I see
They stare and smile at me, at me
It happens every day at the crossing of the street
Walking out to see what's new and what is just the same
And the only word for love is everybody's name
And that will always stay
It happens every day
And every day will happen without you
I've got the bus stop in my neighborhood
And everything's on purpose everywhere they go
Hiding in my car and running in the snow
Running with the friends they'll know for years
I've seen it all from here, from here
It happens every day, before they go to school
They play until the bus drives up beside my lawn
And there's always been a mother who waits 'til they are gone
Then she turns away
It happens every day
Noon comes and turns this campus upside down
I watch the students in this college town
You would think they're carefree, I have seen their trials
Frowning into Shakespeare and practicing their smiles
Even underlining Nabokov
When I am not in love, in love
It happens every day with their journals in cafes
Looking up at their reflection on the other wall
With every new idea wondering if they've changed at all
And then they look away
It happens every day
Well life is as hard and as easy as they say
Walking the steps we've chosen on this day
Some will be outrageous, some have rarely shown
Some will walk in couples, some will walk alone
As I think about the world I see
They stare and smile at me, at me
It happens every day at the crossing of the street
Walking out to see what's new and what is just the same
And the only word for love is everybody's name
And that will always stay
It happens every day
And every day will happen without you
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“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
It is a beautiful song with really amazing lyrics. I love the line "and the only word for love is everybody's name"--I'm not completely sure what it means but I like it.