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"
Eyes on this flesh the windows of my soul
From these I look inside and see it all
Thorns in my heart and needles in my brain
Is pain infectious or is it from the core
My fate is hiding in the dark
Or it's my mind that steals the light
Heavy conscience on my shoulder
i Can't hold on any longer
Cold ice now
Darkness, kill my pain
I asked my father why he passed me by
He said I'm always here and watching you
Don't be afraid when you have lost your way
Follow the signs and they'll be leading you
Why do I fear to leave the lie
When time has come to say goodbye
Heavy conscience on my shoulder
i Can't hold on any longer
Cold ice now
Darkness, kill my pain
"WE ARE THE ANCIENT SAGES, FOR WHOM THE SIGN IS SHOWN
FORGOTTEN ONES FROM THE REALM OF THE UNKNOWN
WITHOUT A NAME OR TRACE, IN DEATH WE SANK
AND IN THE BOOK OF TIME OUR NAMES ARE BLANK"
From these I look inside and see it all
Thorns in my heart and needles in my brain
Is pain infectious or is it from the core
My fate is hiding in the dark
Or it's my mind that steals the light
Heavy conscience on my shoulder
i Can't hold on any longer
Cold ice now
Darkness, kill my pain
I asked my father why he passed me by
He said I'm always here and watching you
Don't be afraid when you have lost your way
Follow the signs and they'll be leading you
Why do I fear to leave the lie
When time has come to say goodbye
Heavy conscience on my shoulder
i Can't hold on any longer
Cold ice now
Darkness, kill my pain
"WE ARE THE ANCIENT SAGES, FOR WHOM THE SIGN IS SHOWN
FORGOTTEN ONES FROM THE REALM OF THE UNKNOWN
WITHOUT A NAME OR TRACE, IN DEATH WE SANK
AND IN THE BOOK OF TIME OUR NAMES ARE BLANK"
Lyrics submitted by mercanfat
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“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.
album: "Unspoken" (2001)
The word suffering is sometimes used in the narrow sense of physical pain, but more often it refers to mental or emotional pain, or more often yet to pain in the broad sense, i.e. to any unpleasant feeling, emotion or sensation.
The word pain usually refers to physical pain, but it is also a common synonym of suffering.
The words pain and suffering are often used both together in different ways. For instance, they may be used as interchangeable synonyms. Or they may be used in 'contradistinction' to one another, as in "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional", or "pain is physical, suffering is mental". Or they may be used to define each other, as in "pain is physical suffering", or "suffering is severe physical or mental pain".
Qualifiers, such as mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual, are often used for referring to certain types of pain or suffering. In particular, 'mental pain (or suffering)' may be used in relationship with 'physical pain (or suffering)' for distinguishing between two wide categories of pain or suffering. A first caveat concerning such a distinction is that it uses 'physical pain' in a sense that normally includes not only the 'typical sensory experience' of 'physical pain' but also other unpleasant bodily experiences such as itching or nausea. A second caveat is that the terms physical or mental should not be taken too literally: physical pain or suffering, as a matter of fact, happens through conscious minds and involves emotional aspects, while mental pain or suffering happens through physical brains and, being an emotion, involves important physiological aspects.
Words that are roughly synonymic with suffering, in addition to pain, include distress, sorrow, unhappiness, misery, affliction, woe, ill, discomfort, displeasure, disagreeableness, unpleasantness