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"
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless (suicide)
It brings on many changes (changes)
And I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger
Watch it grin
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied oh why ask me?
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
And you can do the same thing if you please
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless (suicide)
It brings on many changes (changes)
And I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger
Watch it grin
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied oh why ask me?
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
And you can do the same thing if you please
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14 y.o. kid wrote lyrics about the war and the transience of life? You gotta be kidding...
By the way, movie/series is just a pale copy of the Joseph Heller's book Catch 22.
It meant nothing when i was in my twenties, 30 plus years later, i have a greater understanding for the truth behind the lyrics, it does not condone suicide but rather explains a final way to escape. I love the song but it does make me rather sad.
A great song from a great movie, this song encapsulates the frustrated irony of MASH.
Anyway, its supposed to be ironic, not serious. Its not pro-suicide. Used in the movie MASH, specifically in the instance that a dentist was considering suicide because, as I recall, he thought he was gay. (which he wasn't, he was just disturbed)
Such a hauntingly beautiful song. It really conveys the sense of apathy and hopelessness that comes about with depression and suicide. And to think that it was written by a 14-year-old. (Trivia time: It was written by Mike Altman, the son of the movie's director, Robert Altman. Mike got a lot richer than his dad from the movie.)
Check out the version of this song by the soul jazz group Midnight Blue on their 'Inner City Blues ' album.
In no way suicide could or would ever be done without pain. That is beyond any sense or degree of intelligence. A lot of despair and loss go into a mind before suicide. And a specific pain gets transferred to the survivors as well. I lost my father to suicide when I was eleven.
these are such great lyrics - probably my favourite lyrics ever, next to the sound of silence
i don\'t think may people know that this song has words to it. they just know the tune from the start of the TV show.
this is a great song. its so perfect in such a dark, disturbing way.