Once bitten and twice shy?Careless Whispers by George Michael

This is from the song Careless Whispers by George Michael.
Formerly from Wham!

Someone asked me this and I couldn’t come up with an answer. What does this mean? Or it doesn’t mean anything but just filler words.

maybe these will help : http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/453.html
http://www.topology.org/lang/phrases.html

Imagine the first time(once) you saw a snake and it bit you, the second time(twice) you will be shy of it.

You might find it’s from from ‘Last Christmas’ … erm… so someone told me… :blush:

Rough Chinese equivalents: