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"
And the first one tore a picture
Of a dead and hanging man
Who was kissing foreign fishes
That flew right out from this hands
And when I put my arms around him
I felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks
And an eeriness surrounded when his tongue began to speak
And he said...Oh boy you are so pretty
Enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string.
And when I finally kissed him the whole world began to ring
Lost like a bell that's tipping over
With two cracks along both sides
And I knew the world was over so I took a look outside
And watched the fires that were reaching
Up to the weather vane and the tops of trees
And the waiting scene and the Sunday dream
They're all waiting here for me
Deli markets with their flower stands
And pretty girls and the burning men
Hanging out on the hooks next to the window displays
And I took out my tongue twice removed from my face
Across a bridge and across the mountains
Threw a nickel in a fountain
To save my soul from all these troubled times
And all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take
To soothe my mind so I'm always sober
Always aching, always heading towards
Mass suicide, occult figurines
And wasted gas-station attendants
Attending to their jobs
And a nice drive in the country
Finds a nice cliff to drop off
Oh when this life just gets so grating
All the grittiness of life
But don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you
You're too wonderful to die
And the last one tore a picture
From the pornographic page
When all the pleasure points attacking
All the looks of love were staged
And it's a lie that you've been given
That just hurts you every day
So why should i lay here naked
When it's just too far away
From anything we could call loving
Any love worth living for
So I'll sleep out in the gutter
You can sleep here on the floor
And when I wake up in the morning
I won't forget to lock the door
Because with a match that's mean and some gasoline
You won't see me anymore
Of a dead and hanging man
Who was kissing foreign fishes
That flew right out from this hands
And when I put my arms around him
I felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks
And an eeriness surrounded when his tongue began to speak
And he said...Oh boy you are so pretty
Enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string.
And when I finally kissed him the whole world began to ring
Lost like a bell that's tipping over
With two cracks along both sides
And I knew the world was over so I took a look outside
And watched the fires that were reaching
Up to the weather vane and the tops of trees
And the waiting scene and the Sunday dream
They're all waiting here for me
Deli markets with their flower stands
And pretty girls and the burning men
Hanging out on the hooks next to the window displays
And I took out my tongue twice removed from my face
Across a bridge and across the mountains
Threw a nickel in a fountain
To save my soul from all these troubled times
And all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take
To soothe my mind so I'm always sober
Always aching, always heading towards
Mass suicide, occult figurines
And wasted gas-station attendants
Attending to their jobs
And a nice drive in the country
Finds a nice cliff to drop off
Oh when this life just gets so grating
All the grittiness of life
But don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you
You're too wonderful to die
And the last one tore a picture
From the pornographic page
When all the pleasure points attacking
All the looks of love were staged
And it's a lie that you've been given
That just hurts you every day
So why should i lay here naked
When it's just too far away
From anything we could call loving
Any love worth living for
So I'll sleep out in the gutter
You can sleep here on the floor
And when I wake up in the morning
I won't forget to lock the door
Because with a match that's mean and some gasoline
You won't see me anymore
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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Woah, I don't know if I think the same as anyone else, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right just by looking at the title of this very song... SONG AGAINST SEX! People call it an anti-drug song, and maybe there are a few anti-drug lines ("don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you" and "all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take to free my mind") but MAINLY it is against sex...it's not against making love or ALL sex, he's against loveless sex for the pure purpose of pleasure...he's against everything that is a facade and everything that isn't real (which could include drug induced feelings)
Look at the first stanza...it's about losing your virginity. One of the best lines in this is "Lost like a bell that's tipping over with two cracks along the side" Can a bell that's cracked ever ring again? No! Can you get your virginity back after you lose it? No! Wonderful metaphor. Anyway, so at first (as seen in the first verse) it's all young and it's the loss of innocence.
"And the first one tore a picture of a dead and hanging man Who was kissing foreign fishes who flew right out from his hands"
AND WHO IS IS A FISHERMEN OF FOREIGN FISHES? WHO WOULD BE KISSING THEM? WHO IS DEAD AND HANGING AND WHY WOULD ANYONE HAVE A PICTURE OF A DEAD AND HANGING MAN?"
Simple...it's Jesus. And Christianity is clearly against pre-marital sex, so the tearing of the picture of Jesus is an act of rebellion against that. The fished flying right out from his hands is the idea that even though Jesus cared about everyone, he has no control over them, and like the person in this song, whose act of rebelion is sex, they're just flying away.
So the next few lines are all about the lust and "crush" and "attraction" of the lost of virginity, and sometimes the possesiveness it creates "enough to wrap tight in rice paper string" and that the possessiveness is the first sign that this isn't actually love...
The second verse is coming to terms with two disapointments that paralel each other. Love and Life. First this "love" that was so exciting, isn't really and isn't carrying through. It's all a show "flower stands" "pretty girls and their burning men hanging out on the hooks in the window display" and life is the same way...everything that was thought to be real, if it's not real it just won't carry through, and it's a dissapointment that can be so overwhelming, there's no reason to live.
The third verse brings it full circle with the parrallels between the first lines of the first verse and the first lines of the third.
"And the last one tore a pictures from a pornographic page And all the pleasure points attacking All the looks of love were stage"
You can get to a point where you have sex as much as you want...you know how to stimulate a person so that they have the most physical pleasure, but with out love that's ALL you have. You can have the best sex in the world...but it ends there.
The looks of love were staged is the way some people my try to have sex to convince themselves that they are in love. And the more you try to convince yourself of something that isn't true (the reoccuring underlying theme here is against fakeness) the more it hurts you and the deeper you get in to a lie the harder it is to get out.
"So why should I lie here naked when it's just too far away from anything we could call loving any love worth living for so I'll sleep out in the gutter you can sleep here on the floor"
Once it's realized that the "love" or meaning you gave something is fake, it's natural to after enough contemplation want nothing to do with it. It hurts. This lie of sex as love is so far away from real love that once you get too far you can't go back, and when one sees this it's so disturbing that sleeping out in the gutter is worth it just to be far away from it.
And eventually all fake things will end.
This is a song against sex...or maybe to be a little more clear...
This is a song against fucking. This song is saying that fucking is not the same as love.
Everyone saying it's an anti-drug song...first and foremost it's against sex, you might be able to claim it's indirectly an anti-drug song or secondly it's an anti drug song (because it's against fake things that people try to convince themselves are real) but the ironic thing is that I finally figured out what this song was about after smoking a crucial amoung of marijuana.
Ciao, Mary
PERFECT!
perfect X 2
thsnk you for this