I wrote One More Time when I was 12 years old with the thought that I wanted to write my first “real” song. I started writing songs a couple of years before that, but most of them had no meaning, and the choruses were just one word being repeated with “oohs”. The meaning behind this song started with the thought of a loved one losing their life and my mind had instantly gone to my grandma. However, as I further wrote this song, it developed more into a song about somebody’s significant other passing away.
Verse 1:
Memories with you keep popping up in my head,
playing over again, those final words that you said
The lyrics I wrote and read, while looking at the pictures of you I've kept, so many tears I've wept, this breaks my heart again and again.
The first two lines of this song kind of encapsulate the shock that someone might have when the person first passes away. The idea that this person could have passed away in your arms, and that moment, your life, and those memories with them, continue to replay in your head making it even more painful. The last line in this first verse basically talks about if you were in my point of view. Writing a song about this person while going through some old pictures, and just how heartbroken you truly are.
Pre-Chorus 1:
Sometimes the truth harshly reminds me, that you're gone, and not standing next to me.
The painful nights where you’re not laying by my side,
what I'd give, for one more time
This section continues that story from the first verse. After progressing slightly further in the grief process, you look at those old pictures and that makes it more real and it hurts even more. The nights where you look on the other side of the bed and they aren’t there anymore. Then this last line is just what everyone always thinks when they lose someone they love, like what they would give to have just one more look at them or 10 more seconds with them.
Chorus:
One more time, for me to feel your loving embrace
One more time, for me to just look at your face
One more time, for me to say I love you and you say it right back
So many more times I wish I had
So one last time let me kiss you goodbye
This just continues that previous thought, like the moments you’ve thought about and what thing you wanted just one more of. Then you just can’t decide and there’s, “So many more times I wish I had”. Finally, deciding you just want one last kiss to say goodbye.
Verse 2:
Endless nights of grief, thinking of you while I sleep.
You mean the world to me, I'll love you endlessly.
Pre-Chorus 2:
It's been a week, but I've never lived a week so long.
One day you're here, the next you're gone.
It was too sudden, but I really tried to stay strong.
I can't move on, thinking of a life without you feels so wrong.
So can I have
This final verse and pre-chorus are pretty much together. Verse 2 is so short, it’s just like a short bridge almost into the final pre-chorus, and this part continues that idea of the sleepless nights, and how hours can feel like days and days can feel like weeks. The second half of that pre-chorus talks about how quickly this person came and went, and how hard it really is to grieve, mourn, and move on from someone who meant everything to you.
All in all, this song was really the first semi-real song that I wrote, and kind of grew the passion for songwriting that I now have today. It’s honestly so therapeutic for me, and I love music. Once you become a songwriter, every single song that you hear, you listen to differently. You notice little things that other people don’t, more specifically, the lyrics. As you become a lyricist or a poet, you notice these things and can draw inspiration from so many different artists, and that’s what creates the unique voice that all these writers have. This song grew a passion for me that I believe I will have for the rest of my life, and hopefully, this article inspires you to do some writing of your own, no matter what form it may take, and to use it as an escape moving forward.