The lyric is "And you re-read, and you re-read." As this song is making reference to the novel by Charles Dickens (I have not read said novel.) And so it would seem that the love interest of the protagonist was obsessed with this novel leading up to her leaving without any explanation. In order to understand why his love interest would leave him stranded in this manner he gets a copy of the novel and reads it only to 'end up deeper still, In Hard Times.' Which is a clever double entendre. He spends a year searching every sentence of this novel trying to understand her and then becomes her without realizing. So she too was mourning a loss when they were together and was searching for solace in the novel. At least I would make that assumption. There was not much to get out of the content of the novel, it was a total red hearing that led him on because he thought that the separation was a person a front to him- a stance which I can relate very deeply too.
The lyric is "And you re-read, and you re-read." As this song is making reference to the novel by Charles Dickens (I have not read said novel.) And so it would seem that the love interest of the protagonist was obsessed with this novel leading up to her leaving without any explanation. In order to understand why his love interest would leave him stranded in this manner he gets a copy of the novel and reads it only to 'end up deeper still, In Hard Times.' Which is a clever double entendre. He spends a year searching every sentence of this novel trying to understand her and then becomes her without realizing. So she too was mourning a loss when they were together and was searching for solace in the novel. At least I would make that assumption. There was not much to get out of the content of the novel, it was a total red hearing that led him on because he thought that the separation was a person a front to him- a stance which I can relate very deeply too.