Quite obvious from the title, but it's just reminiscing after someone's died.
He remembers how things used to be when they were young and together and he feels a desperate desire to go back. Then he moves to despair at thinking about all the things the dead person will never do. He doesn't want them to be afraid, but at the same time he's afraid himself because this person is gone and so his "best days" are over.
The idea of "the country that I knew" as being before 9/11 is interesting and puts the whole song on a greater scale. Personally I prefer to think of it as being simply one person thinking about a friend who's died. I just see it as his wish that things were different - he'd pay to go back. To him it seems like the entire country's changed because the world feels so different without this one person in it.
Quite obvious from the title, but it's just reminiscing after someone's died.
He remembers how things used to be when they were young and together and he feels a desperate desire to go back. Then he moves to despair at thinking about all the things the dead person will never do. He doesn't want them to be afraid, but at the same time he's afraid himself because this person is gone and so his "best days" are over.
The idea of "the country that I knew" as being before 9/11 is interesting and puts the whole song on a greater scale. Personally I prefer to think of it as being simply one person thinking about a friend who's died. I just see it as his wish that things were different - he'd pay to go back. To him it seems like the entire country's changed because the world feels so different without this one person in it.