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 had a dream
Oh, yeah
Crazy dream, uh-huh
Anything I wanted to know
Any place I needed to go
Hear my song
Yeah, people don't you listen now?
Sing along
Oh
You don't know what you're missing, now
Any little song that you know
Everything that's small has to grow
And it's gonna grow, push push, yeah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, California sunlight
Sweet Calcutta rain
Honolulu starbright
The song remains the same
Ooh, ooh, oh, oh
Here we go, here we go
All you gotta do, now
All you gotta do, now
Ooh-ee
Sing out Hare-Hare
Ooh, dance the Hoochie-Koo
City lights are oh so bright, as we go sliding, sliding
Sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding
Oh
Oh, yeah
Crazy dream, uh-huh
Anything I wanted to know
Any place I needed to go
Hear my song
Yeah, people don't you listen now?
Sing along
Oh
You don't know what you're missing, now
Any little song that you know
Everything that's small has to grow
And it's gonna grow, push push, yeah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, California sunlight
Sweet Calcutta rain
Honolulu starbright
The song remains the same
Ooh, ooh, oh, oh
Here we go, here we go
All you gotta do, now
All you gotta do, now
Ooh-ee
Sing out Hare-Hare
Ooh, dance the Hoochie-Koo
City lights are oh so bright, as we go sliding, sliding
Sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding
Oh
Lyrics submitted by kevin, edited by Mellow_Harsher
The Song Remains the Same Lyrics as written by Robert Anthony Plant James Patrick (jimmy) Page
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
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Plant has spoken often about what this song is all about, and I'm a collector of their live recordings, so I've heard it often. In his words (per his intros from the 1973 shows in New Orleans, Mobile, and Salt Lake City), it's "about how you can travel half way around the world and people are pretty much the same..." That's a quote. They had just gone through India, Australia, etc, early in 1972, prior to the song's recording. They had experienced many cultures and societies, but the song - being music - was the same world wide. People of all languages and cultures could communicate as one with music, and that no matter where in the world we might go, we'd still see the same people.
one of led zeppelin's best. i can't believe no one's commented on it. i think it's actually about a dream plant had. where he went to different parts of the world, and the "song" was always the same. i think song is metaphorical, but i don't have a clue what it could represent.
My take on this is that as time passes they will die but the song will remain the same. Thus as long as people listen they are forever immortalized through their wonderful music.
@teleski13 the "SONG" remains.the 'MUSIC' remains.
@teleski13 given the chorus talks about locations rather than time, would the message be more likely that no matter where you are in the world the music the song is the same??
Plant said this song was inspired by his actual travels to the Asia and the Indies where even though the cultures and people were different, "to keep a long long story short, the song remained the same."
it might be about going to asia but it seems like from the lyrics and live performances that this song is about love, sex, and how its essence of passion remains the same through cultural differences.
I heard it was about Plants belief that all music came from the same root, and melody
and are alll basically the same
Zeppelin's tribute to world music, and the varieties they experienced on their travels
i think its about music being a global language, the song remains the same, and still understood, anywhere.
@aldrrian lunsfelt love the inference of the "global language" well thought out
This song was originally going to be an instrumental, but then Robert came up with these lyrics. He says that someone pushed the pen for him. I think it's all about living together... but the lyrics can have many interpretations. They're incredible.
Plant's voice seems to be sped up, and that goes for some other songs as well on the Houses Of The Holy album. It's the album where his voice starts to sound battered. The price to pay after 5 years of screaming, I guess, but it never lost it's greatness.
I think it's "Honolulu star LIGHT", but no biggie either way.
I live in California, and about once a week I see the sun and get this song in my head.
"Hare Hare" is a line from the song of the Hare Krishnas. Hoochie Koo is probably from the Rick Derringer song and represents a very different kind of mysic from the Krishnas. Here, the Hares are asked to dance to this very different kind of music because, hey, the song remains the same.