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"
So this is where he came to hide
When he ran from you
In a private detective's overcoat
And dirty dead man's shoes
The pretty things of Knightsbridge
Lying for a minister of state
Is a far cry from the nod and wink
Here at traitor's gate
'Cause the high heel he used to be has been ground down
And he listens for the footsteps that would follow him around
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
There's a tuppeny hapenny millionaire
Looking for a fourpenny one
With a tight grip on the short hairs
Of the public imagination
But for his private wife and kids somehow
Real life becomes a rumor
Days of Dutch courage
Just three French letters and a German sense of humor
He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge
He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
The biggest wheels of industry
Retire sharp and short
And the after dinner overtures
Are nothing but an after thought
Somebody's creeping in the kitchen
There's a reputation to be made
Whose nerves are always on a knife's edge
Who's up late polishing the blade
Love is always scarpering or cowering or fawning
You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
Will you still love
A man out of time
Will you still love
A man out of time
When he ran from you
In a private detective's overcoat
And dirty dead man's shoes
The pretty things of Knightsbridge
Lying for a minister of state
Is a far cry from the nod and wink
Here at traitor's gate
'Cause the high heel he used to be has been ground down
And he listens for the footsteps that would follow him around
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
There's a tuppeny hapenny millionaire
Looking for a fourpenny one
With a tight grip on the short hairs
Of the public imagination
But for his private wife and kids somehow
Real life becomes a rumor
Days of Dutch courage
Just three French letters and a German sense of humor
He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge
He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
The biggest wheels of industry
Retire sharp and short
And the after dinner overtures
Are nothing but an after thought
Somebody's creeping in the kitchen
There's a reputation to be made
Whose nerves are always on a knife's edge
Who's up late polishing the blade
Love is always scarpering or cowering or fawning
You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning
To murder my love is a crime
But will you still love
A man out of time
Will you still love
A man out of time
Will you still love
A man out of time
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How can people have not commented on this? I find that this song is so powerful, and is easily one of my favourite Costello songs. It's so relevant to me...