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"
It's a critical solution, and the east coast got the blues
It's a mass of confusion, like the lies they sell to you
You got a glass-jawed toothache of a mental disease
And they be running 'round back, see them line up on their knees
'Cause the kiss-ass sycophants, throwing penance at your feet
When they got nowhere to go
Watch them come in off the streets
While they're banging out front
Inside they're slamming to the crunch
Go on an throw me to the lions
And the whole damn screaming bunch
'Cause the pissed-off rip-offs, they're everywhere you turn
Tell me how a generation's ever supposed to learn
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
I read it on a wall, it went straight to my head
It said, "Dance to the tension of a world on edge"
We got racial violence, and who'll cast the first stone?
And sex is used any way it can be
Sometimes, when I look out, it's hard to see the day
It's a feeling, you can have it, it's not mine to take away
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
And there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
Suck on that
Looking through this point of view
There's no way I'm gonna fit in
No, you tell me what my eyes see
Don't you tell me who to believe in
I ain't superstitious, but I know when something's wrong
I've been dragging my heels with a bitch called hope
Let the undercurrent drag me along
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
And there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden, come on
Most organized religions make a mockery of humanity
Our governments are dangerous and out of control
The Garden of Eden is just another graveyard
Said, if they had someone to buy it
Said, I'm sure they'd sell my soul
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
It's a mass of confusion, like the lies they sell to you
You got a glass-jawed toothache of a mental disease
And they be running 'round back, see them line up on their knees
'Cause the kiss-ass sycophants, throwing penance at your feet
When they got nowhere to go
Watch them come in off the streets
While they're banging out front
Inside they're slamming to the crunch
Go on an throw me to the lions
And the whole damn screaming bunch
'Cause the pissed-off rip-offs, they're everywhere you turn
Tell me how a generation's ever supposed to learn
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
I read it on a wall, it went straight to my head
It said, "Dance to the tension of a world on edge"
We got racial violence, and who'll cast the first stone?
And sex is used any way it can be
Sometimes, when I look out, it's hard to see the day
It's a feeling, you can have it, it's not mine to take away
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
And there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
Suck on that
Looking through this point of view
There's no way I'm gonna fit in
No, you tell me what my eyes see
Don't you tell me who to believe in
I ain't superstitious, but I know when something's wrong
I've been dragging my heels with a bitch called hope
Let the undercurrent drag me along
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
And there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden, come on
Most organized religions make a mockery of humanity
Our governments are dangerous and out of control
The Garden of Eden is just another graveyard
Said, if they had someone to buy it
Said, I'm sure they'd sell my soul
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, we're lost in the Garden of Eden
Said, there's no one who's gonna believe this
But we're lost in the Garden of Eden
This fire is burning, and it's out of control
It's not a problem you can stop
It's rock n' roll
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The Night We Met
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I don't think it's necessarily about sex. It's about wanting to start the day with some love and affection. Maybe a warm cuddle. I'm not alone in interpreting it that way! For example:
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I do not know what it means but the song is great.