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"
I come from a long way away
And I know a fine thing when I see it
See it
For the same reason no one ever pointed a telescope at the sun
Talking about the Red Angels of N-Y City
Who shot the shot?
Who got shot tonight?
Who shot the shot?
Who got shot tonight?
Not even five enforcement agencies can save their own
Never mind the people
Tonight it's raining on the Angels of the City (who got shot tonight?)
Did anyone prophesize these people?
Only Travis
Come in, Travis
"All the animals come out at night
Queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal (who got shot tonight?)
Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets"
(Who got shot tonight?) the city knows
"Thank god for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk
Listen you screwheads, here is a man who would not take it anymore
A man who stood up against the scum, the filth
Now I see clearly"
Personally I know the alley
Where Jack feeds on the birds of night
Not even bubbies bicycling (two-by-two) can stop the blood and feathers flying
(Who got shot tonight?)
(Who got shot tonight?)
(Who got shot tonight?)
Wearing overalls and for once and for all
What is the dream?
I'll tell it
To live like they do in the movies?
San Juan, you listening?
Yeah, I bet you are
Hands up for Hollywood (hooray!), I hear you
Snappy on the air, hang in there, wall to wall
You saved the world, what else, you saved the girl
Chmpagne on ice, no stranger to Alcatraz to boot
Or strip it down, chop it a little
Being reasonable
Just freedom to move, to live
For women to take a walk in the park at midnight (who got shot tonight?)
Hey, but this is serious, she can't even get back home (who got shot tonight?)
Who shot the shot that popped the cop that chopped the cop and made him drop?
"One of these days, I'm gonna get myself organizized"
And I know a fine thing when I see it
See it
For the same reason no one ever pointed a telescope at the sun
Talking about the Red Angels of N-Y City
Who shot the shot?
Who got shot tonight?
Who shot the shot?
Who got shot tonight?
Not even five enforcement agencies can save their own
Never mind the people
Tonight it's raining on the Angels of the City (who got shot tonight?)
Did anyone prophesize these people?
Only Travis
Come in, Travis
"All the animals come out at night
Queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal (who got shot tonight?)
Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets"
(Who got shot tonight?) the city knows
"Thank god for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk
Listen you screwheads, here is a man who would not take it anymore
A man who stood up against the scum, the filth
Now I see clearly"
Personally I know the alley
Where Jack feeds on the birds of night
Not even bubbies bicycling (two-by-two) can stop the blood and feathers flying
(Who got shot tonight?)
(Who got shot tonight?)
(Who got shot tonight?)
Wearing overalls and for once and for all
What is the dream?
I'll tell it
To live like they do in the movies?
San Juan, you listening?
Yeah, I bet you are
Hands up for Hollywood (hooray!), I hear you
Snappy on the air, hang in there, wall to wall
You saved the world, what else, you saved the girl
Chmpagne on ice, no stranger to Alcatraz to boot
Or strip it down, chop it a little
Being reasonable
Just freedom to move, to live
For women to take a walk in the park at midnight (who got shot tonight?)
Hey, but this is serious, she can't even get back home (who got shot tonight?)
Who shot the shot that popped the cop that chopped the cop and made him drop?
"One of these days, I'm gonna get myself organizized"
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