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"
We've been around forever
Look at us now together
Ordering drinks at the bar
Saying hello to manfriends
Smiling across a friend's friends
Ordering drinks at the bar
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
(Ta da da da da aah Ta da da da da)
We'll stand around forever
Regardless of time or weather
Ordering drinks at the bar
Looking for love, and getting
Nothing that's worth regretting
But wondering why we travel so far
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
To speak is a sin
You'd better beware (aah)
But once in a while
A smile, if you dare (aah)
(Aah, Aah, Aah)
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
To speak is a sin
You'd better beware (aah)
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare (oooh)
(Aaah Aaah Oooh)
(Aaahhh)
Look at us now together
Ordering drinks at the bar
Saying hello to manfriends
Smiling across a friend's friends
Ordering drinks at the bar
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
(Ta da da da da aah Ta da da da da)
We'll stand around forever
Regardless of time or weather
Ordering drinks at the bar
Looking for love, and getting
Nothing that's worth regretting
But wondering why we travel so far
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
To speak is a sin
You'd better beware (aah)
But once in a while
A smile, if you dare (aah)
(Aah, Aah, Aah)
To speak is a sin
You look first, then stare
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare
To speak is a sin
You'd better beware (aah)
And once in a while
A smile, if you dare (oooh)
(Aaah Aaah Oooh)
(Aaahhh)
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Definitley about an older individual loving someone much younger.
I absolutely love it! "How graceful your movements, how bitter your scorn I've been a teenager since before you were born" -Best lines of the whole song. =]
To me, this is the deepest song that PSB ever produced. I can relate to this song as I am now a middle aged man who doesn't feel older than 20, but I no longer turn young men's heads.
It's about a middle aged or older gay man in a bar or restaurant watching a handsome young man as he plays a video game (listen to the background noises to hear the video games being played).
The older man carries on a conversation in his head with the younger man. He says the young man doesn't need money or depth to get what he "wants", whereas if the older man "wants" something, he would likely have to pay for it. In his mind's eye he's telling the young man that he imagines the young man can have any man he wants and yet he treats them with contempt and discards them when he's done. He speaks about the young man's "attitude" - his superior attitude because he's young and handsome. He remembers when he so foolishly did the same.
He remembers what it was like to be young and be able to turn men down. He thinks that even though the young man has contempt for him or doesn't even know he exists, he would "do what you want if you want me enough". The older man would like to have a young man just so much as notice him now. He knows he could easily "put down my book and start falling in love" but acknowledges that young people today sleep around a lot more than he did because he says "or isn't that done?".
He says, "I've been a teenager since before you were born" meaning he is at the very least 13 years older than the young man in question and probably older, but he reminds the young man that he's "younger than some", meaning he isn't as old as a lot of other men and he is defending himself, as he doesn't feel as old as he is.
He yearns to not just "get in your way" but to "open [the boy's] eyes" to him, even though the boy doesn't notice him. He thinks the boy would be pleasantly surprised.
Alas, he acknowledges that this conversation is all in his head, as the young man continues to play the video games and the man doesn't even know how to play them.
The chorus reminds us that this is a conversation in the man's head and that he knows that this young man (and all young men) seem to look right through him and are completely unaware of his existence.
It's a very sad song, all in all. Of course it's a very sad state of affairs just getting older if you're gay.