Killing Floor

The speaker looks back on a relationship he believes he should have left much earlier. He repeats that he had chances to go, even to leave for Mexico, but stayed. The mood develops from regret about past choices to a painful sense of being trapped and brought low.

“Followed my first mind” means acting on an early instinct or judgment. The speaker suggests that he knew, or suspected, what was best but did not trust that feeling. Mexico represents a possible way out, though the lyrics do not explain whether it is a literal destination or simply an imagined escape. The “killing floor” is a powerful image of danger and suffering; here, it may suggest the place where the relationship has left him emotionally defeated.

The speaker blames the relationship, saying the other person let him end up on the killing floor, but he also recognizes his own choices: he stayed when he could have gone. This creates a tension between feeling harmed by someone else and regretting his own decisions. The song does not tell us exactly what happened between them, so the killing floor may be understood as a metaphor for heartbreak, misery, or a more serious kind of danger.