History Never Repeats
Neil Finn
History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
Don’t say the words you might regret
I’ve lost before, you know I can’t forget
There was a girl I used to know
She dealt my love a savage blow
I was so young, too blind to see
But anyway that’s history
(I say) History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
Don’t say the words you might regret
I’ve lost before, you know I can’t forget
You say I always played the fool
I can’t go on if that’s the rule
Better to jump than hesitate
I need a change and I can’t wait
History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there’s a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart
History never repeats
History never repeats
Deep in the night it’s all so clear
I lie awake with great ideas
Lurking about in no-man’s land
I think at last I understand
History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there’s a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart
Song appears on:
Split Enz - Corroboree (aka Waiata) - album, 1981
Live: Fangradio webcasts, 2020
“It’s not a reference to anything Neil has done but it’s nice because it states that he never is going to repeat himself. But it’s more a general thing of Neil being positive and that if anything bad happens, it won’t happen again - go forward.”
“It was pretty hard to write songs after that [True Colours]. I remember struggling a little bit. We were in the middle of touring. I wrote History Never Repeats in a motel in Perth, Cottesloe Beach.”
“I wrote some of History Never Repeats [at Bergen aan Zee in early 1978] which I think Phil [Judd] to this day thinks he wrote. My memory is I played that for him and he went ‘Ah, that’s really good!’”
