Q: What is the real meaning behind this line?
A: here's what i think, as i'm analyzing it now: this is a classic case of the song being about itself. The starting point for that song was just the one line ('just did a bad thing'), with really no indication of any sort of form or anything. Half way through the first section, it already seems to ditch out of the original paradigm slightly ('wondering what it is, etc'), it slips into the major key, and just,... no sort of repeating figure has been established. so far everything seems to be a special-case scenario. Then when it hits the next stanza, (bad day, bad year), we've already broken from what it had done in the first stanza. (the first stanza had the 'regret' line, which is quite different from the first line, but in the second stanza, the first two lines essentially are the same as each other), so for many reasons, at this point, (after 'bad year'), it's very clear that there is NO established pattern. we are free to roam. And it's likely at this point that i was feeling stuck, because really there's just too many possibilities. I was probably running through what i had so far, thinking i would get clues about the future (of the song) from the past (in the song). And that's just not gonna happen, because really what should probably happen is it should probably get out and GO somewhere it hasn't gone yet. So, looking at what did come next, the 'cancelled' line, this is a perfect way of expressing that everything you might have expected was going to happen (based on what happened so far) in the song, will probably not happen. And, sure enough, immediately after this, it transitions into a totally new key, and a new paradigm entirely. So basically the reason for that line is to shake off the previous paradigm (bad things, etc), because we gotta get away and jump into a whole new territory. (the 'game' section, etc).