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"
Woo, ooh
Woo, ooh
I was the third brother of five
Doing whatever I had to do to survive
I'm not saying what I did was alright
Tryna break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight
Been down so long, getting up didn't cross my mind
But I knew there was a better way of life, and I was just trying to find
You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure
'Cross 110th Street is a hell of a tester
Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free
Across 110th Street
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby
Across 110th Street
You can find it all in the street
Woo, ooh, oh
I got one more thing I'd like to talk to y'all about right now
Hey brother, there's a better way out
Snorting that coke, shooting that dope, man, you're copping out
Take my advice, it's either live or die
You've got to be strong if you wanna survive
The family on the other side of town
Would catch hell without a ghetto around
In every city you'll find the same thing going down
Harlem is the capital of every ghetto town
Help me sing it
Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free, oh
Across 110th Street
A woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby
Across 110th Street, look
You can find it all in the street
Yes, you can
Oh, look around you, look around you, look around you
Look around you, uh, yeah
Woo, ooh
Woo, ooh
I was the third brother of five
Doing whatever I had to do to survive
I'm not saying what I did was alright
Tryna break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight
Been down so long, getting up didn't cross my mind
But I knew there was a better way of life, and I was just trying to find
You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure
'Cross 110th Street is a hell of a tester
Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free
Across 110th Street
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby
Across 110th Street
You can find it all in the street
Woo, ooh, oh
I got one more thing I'd like to talk to y'all about right now
Hey brother, there's a better way out
Snorting that coke, shooting that dope, man, you're copping out
Take my advice, it's either live or die
You've got to be strong if you wanna survive
The family on the other side of town
Would catch hell without a ghetto around
In every city you'll find the same thing going down
Harlem is the capital of every ghetto town
Help me sing it
Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free, oh
Across 110th Street
A woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby
Across 110th Street, look
You can find it all in the street
Yes, you can
Oh, look around you, look around you, look around you
Look around you, uh, yeah
Woo, ooh
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Great version of a great song,
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oh man, this is such a great song...always gets me a thrill
love it in jackie brown and american gangster!!!
awesome song! not many have commented though to my surprise....
Truly realistic! And melancholic, too! We feel it as we were in Harlem, playing Jackie Brown's role in Tarantino's movie! No better song could have ended that movie! A superb movie, a superb song!
It's about a guy and the neighborhood he grew up in. He wanted to avoid the vices other people around him gave into, but at some point he did some things he regrets. Things he won't allude to specifically, because they were morally and/or legally wrong. He's not proud of what he did, but he also thinks he did what he had to do to escape the ghetto.
This song's about street life in east Harlem. Usually avenues are west of the main street in a town and streets are to the east.
What the hell are you even babbling about? Avenues/Streets have NOTHING to do with Main St. Avenues run one direction usually N-S and Streets another direction usually E-W.
110th Street is the North End of Central Park in NYC. North of central park is Harlem
While I agree with man2542 that it's one of the Greats and it's surprising that there have not been more comments to that effect~I guess I wish I were MORE surprised that the comments there ARE are nitpicking about the particulars of the Harlem neighborhood of NYC. And the way Streets & Avenues are commonly arranged in most towns. Note the following two lines: In every city you find the same thing going down/Harlem is the capitol of every ghetto town. You Dig? It's Pretty Damn Sad to have to explain one of the more self-explanitory songs EVER written,but folks, Come On! What MAKES this song one of the Greats,what MAKES it, for example, the PERFECT song for the final shot of
Jackie Brown', as she sings along to it on the radio as she drives off into her well-earned,wonderful future? Well,the KEY to Why is in those two lines, which takes it out of the Strictly Literal.It's not JUST about 110th Street in Harlem~it could be Whateverthehell Boulevard in ANY ghetto in the US: Oakland,Dallas,Gary,Detroit,Newark,New Orleans,Tuscon,Chicago,Vallejo,Los Angeles~anywhere. What the song is ABOUT is Getting Over & Getting Out,& how this requires the strength and courage and intelligence to NOT get caught up in The Game. Pam Grier's character in Jackie Brown DID Get Over & Get Out.But in the BEGINNING of that film, her life can be better described by the lyrics in Randy Crawford'sStreet Life' ~ a song that pretty much illustrates the seductiveness of getting caught up in The Game & ultimately being stuck in (& victimized by) that.This song is ALSO featured in the movie. It doesn't have anything to do with the specifics of 110th Street. Really, I promise.