“Forgiveness” is the oldest song on the record. I wrote it when I was 19 years old - maybe I had JUST turned 20. The full story behind this one is a litttllleee too personal but I’ll give you the short version. Basically, if you couldn’t tell from listening, I was really fucking mad at the person I was seeing. After a very dramatic scene one morning, I ran away from LA for the weekend and wrote this song.
There’s no room in my head/bed for your forgiveness - During this particular... um ... spat we had, neither of us could or would admit fault. I didn’t want his forgiveness because I felt that I didn’t do anything that had to be forgiven, and that it was a backwards way for him to get me to admit I was wrong.
Looking back - I was wrong. Lol. I take full responsibility for my part in that shit show.
The original lyrics to the second verse were:
Oh yeah, you best believe
I’ll take all of your things
Like they belong to me
And I’ll start with your six string
Oh, and your leftover gin
And I’ll leave behind
All your trouble and your sin
Like was I really planning on stealing his guitar? So dumb. Years later, when I revived the song, I changed those lyrics.
The gin reference is significant because at the time we were splitting a bottle of Seagrams (lime) almost every night. So, the relationship wasn't exactly built on a strong foundation and it opened my eyes to the ugly (and sometimes fun) truths about alcohol. Youth is often an excuse for excess drinking, but I learned that it can quickly and easily get out of control. We both made a lot of mistakes because of it.
He was the guitarist in my band, so naturally we ended up getting back together. This song actually ended up on our setlist quite often - he hated it, obviously. I’ve said it before: dating songwriters is a risky business.
After many years, we are friends again and can miraculously laugh about this shit.
There is a lot of young, immature angst behind this song so we decided to channel that in the studio. Led Zeppelin was our big influence on this track. The Robert Plant vocals at the end of the song are a kind of ode to my old rock band phase - it’s been a while since I’ve belted like that. I’ve never screamed into a $7,000 mic before (Neumann U67). It’s kind of a funny coincidence, but at the time we were together, he had a homemade Zoso tattoo on his shoulder. Not sure if that’s still there, but anyways, it all came full circle.
