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 wrote this novel just for you
It sounds pretentious but it's true
I wrote this novel just for you
That's why it's vulgar
That's why it's blue
And I say, thank you
And I say, thank you
I wrote this novel just for Mom
For all the mommy things she's done
For all the times she showed me wrong
For all the time she sang god's song
And I say thank you Mom
Hello Mom
Thank you Mom
Hi Mom
I read a book about Uncle Tom
Where a whitey bastard made a bomb
But now Ebonics rule our song
Those motherfuckers got it wrong
And I ask
Who is uncle Tom?
Who is uncle Tom?
Who is uncle Tom?
You are
I read a book about the self
Said I should get expensive help
Go fix my head
Create some wealth
Put my neurosis on the shelf
But I don't care for myself
I don't care for myself
I don't care for myself
I don't care
I wrote this novel just for you
I'm so pretentious, yes it's true
I wrote this novel just for you
Just for you
Just for you
It sounds pretentious but it's true
I wrote this novel just for you
That's why it's vulgar
That's why it's blue
And I say, thank you
And I say, thank you
I wrote this novel just for Mom
For all the mommy things she's done
For all the times she showed me wrong
For all the time she sang god's song
And I say thank you Mom
Hello Mom
Thank you Mom
Hi Mom
I read a book about Uncle Tom
Where a whitey bastard made a bomb
But now Ebonics rule our song
Those motherfuckers got it wrong
And I ask
Who is uncle Tom?
Who is uncle Tom?
Who is uncle Tom?
You are
I read a book about the self
Said I should get expensive help
Go fix my head
Create some wealth
Put my neurosis on the shelf
But I don't care for myself
I don't care for myself
I don't care for myself
I don't care
I wrote this novel just for you
I'm so pretentious, yes it's true
I wrote this novel just for you
Just for you
Just for you
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The protagonist lashes out in his rebellious attempt to state ' I don't care'.
He's fed up with the world he's living in because he recognizes that so many important things have just gone wrong.
And he's a part of it. He's thinking differently and for that, he should hire a psychiatrist to become another case study that will be published in another self-help book and put on a shelf.
But that's not the solution to the problem.
And the protagonist knows it.
That's why he rather sacrifices himself ('I don't care for myself') to criticize what's wrong than to be numb to all the wrongs that happen in his country.
He's writing that novel for his country ('You') to make it seem that he does not agree with how things are dealt with. No matter if Uncle Tom or Mom are having different opinions.
There is no turning point in this song. No crisis. From the beginning of the song, the protagonist is criticizing. Nothing changes that, everything that happens only supports his way of thinking.