☝️ Key Points
- The song is about how the singer would rather not know what he now knows.
- He wishes he could continue to love blindly instead of knowing the truth.
- The chorus repeats the desire to not want to know what he now knows.
- The singer admits that the other person still has his heart in their hands.
- The song expresses the dilemma between the desire for truth and the desire for love.
Interpretation
In the lyrics of the song 'Wish I Didn't Know Now (what I Didn't Know Then)' by
Toby Keith, it is about the singer wishing he didn't know what he knows now. He says he never asked where the other person was going or where she had been. He never checked her story when she was out with her friends. He never tried to catch her lying because he didn't want to know the truth. He says he would rather continue to love blindly than to not love her at all.
The chorus of the song repeats the wish of not wanting to know what he knows now and that he would start it all over again. He says he's not claiming that she could ever be faithful, he just doesn't want to know how it ends. He admits that she still has his heart in her hands and he still looks like a fool in front of her friends. He wishes he didn't know what he knows now.
The singer also says that he always said that what he doesn't know doesn't hurt as much as leaving her. But now he knows he was right and it's not easy to do. At the end of the song, he says he should leave because he has found out too much, but he asks her not to say she's sorry, because he might be able to wait one more day.
The lyrics of the song express the longing to undo the past and not know what he knows now. He feels betrayed and hurt, but at the same time, he doesn't want to be without that person. It's a song about the dilemma of standing between the desire for truth and the desire for love.