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"
Man's got his woman to take his seed
He's got the power - oh
She's got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Man makes your hair gray
He's your life's mistake
All you're really lookin' for is an even break
He lies right at you
You know you hate this game
He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Black eyes all of the time
Don't spend a dime
Clean up this grime
And you there down on your knees begging me please come
Watch me bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
He's got the power - oh
She's got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Man makes your hair gray
He's your life's mistake
All you're really lookin' for is an even break
He lies right at you
You know you hate this game
He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Black eyes all of the time
Don't spend a dime
Clean up this grime
And you there down on your knees begging me please come
Watch me bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
This one is about abuse towards women.
I agree. It's very rare that men get abused
How could you mention Nickelback along with Alice Cooper? They don't even compare. I love how this song how so many possibilities.
Beautiful song. Classic white trash American song. Slash played this instrumentally and Axl used to sing the first few lines of the 3rd verse as an intro to Knockin' On Heaven's Door live in concert.
Alice rocks.
AliceCooperChick: a wimpy prelude to a Nickleback song? Nickleback?? Isn't that the band with the frontman who sounds like he's constipated? The made-for-commercial-radio-to-play-25-times-a-day, sickly melodramatic, prefabricated-especially-for-the-35+-year-old-female-demographic band Nickleback? You mean THAT Nickleback?
Anyhoo... one of AC's (many) best.
LMFAO I couldnt have said it better! SHE needs to change her name. She is not worthy!<br /> I hated that song so much that I almost felt sorry for men that abuse women! Then I caught myself! Thats what the power of the devil in commercial music cand do to you!
This song is about women who love men who abuse them..and still continue to allow it. My sister works for a battered womens shelter near L.A. and most are long time abused women who stayed with their "man" until they found the courage to leave and find a better life. Still, most go back to the guy who abused them in the first place or to someone else who will. For some, it is all they know....XLNT song about this weird phenomenon....
It's quite obviously about domestic abuse but my dumbarse friend, who obviously never looked at the lyrics thought it was about periods!!!
Wow, that's a stupid moment if I've ever read one lol.
I've known several people who simply saw the song title on the cassette and got offended.
I think it has to do with his dad abusing his mother when he was young. Welcome to My Nightmare every song seems to have leaning towards his childhood
As paulothemanio rightly points out, this song is not about a woman's period, however, using the phrase "only women bleed" helps develop the idea that women are fragile. The metaphor could even extend to include a girl losing her virginity. These connotations reinforce the main idea of the song (domestic abuse) and evokes empathy from the listener by showing the pain and suffering that a woman faces in life.
Truely a great song from a great album, so unstereotypically Alice Cooper that it is attributed to his covers.
its not about his father abusing his mother when he was a child. (His father was a priest if that has anything to do with it). On an interview he said it was only so that he could have something on welcome to my nightmare that contrasts with all the other songs. he was told he couldnt have an entire album about nightmare, so he wrote this 'ballad'.
Anyway.... I love the end of this song....
I like thelive version of this song on the album, "The Alice Cooper Show". It's a great ballad.