Story Behind The Song

I have been working on a new remix of one of my old songs. In 2008 or so, I re-recorded a song called Pain and Shame from my 1997 CD Good Advice For The Damned, but I was never really happy with the recording. Now that I have some nicer equipment, I am polishing up the recording and will post it tomorrow. But it's not done yet. Brad Woods gave. Me some excellent suggestions that I intend to follow, but will involve recording some new tracks. The song itself was not about any particular events that I recall. I was playing with some neat guitar chords. (For all you aficionados, it is full of odd jazz chords, lots of 9th chords, and 6th chords in particular and at least one I can't actually identify.) I thought it would be cool to put all these jazz chords in a grungy type of song. I started mumbling some odd words over it and eventually settled on "you got me feeling pain and shame" and then the line about "I don't know what you said/that made her wish that I was dead." It was going to be just a song about a big misunderstanding, but I ended weaving it into a story where there was something that went on ("just one kiss"), but it meant different things to the two parties involved, destroying another relationship in the process.

Lyrics

Pain and Shame
Words and Music by J Kessler

I don't know what you said
That made her wish that I was dead;
And I don't know where she went
After the letter that you sent;

Somehow you ruined what I thought was close to nothing
With your tendency to go too far;
We understood it till we started being jealous;
And now I can't tell where we are;

You got me feeling pain and shame;
Don't pretend to run away;
Why do you have to play the game?
Like some kind of jealous lover,
I never will recover;
But it wasn't supposed to be that way;

When you're throwing sticks and stones
Work my fingers to the bone;
'Cause you and I were just one night;
You fight for what was never right;

Accidents do happen and there's nothing to see through it
When it was just one kiss
Altogether we just hurt her and you hurt me
Not forgotten, no, not after this

You got me feeling pain and shame;
Don't pretend to run away;
Why do you have to play the game?
Like some kind of jealous lover,
I never will recover;
But it wasn't supposed to be that way;

We couldn't say it in the dark
But you knew that we'd have to part;
'Cause you and I did something wrong
And I just want to play along;

Somehow you ruined what I thought was close to nothing
With your tendency to go too far;
We understood it till we started being jealous;
And now I can't tell where we are;

You got me feeling pain and shame;
Don't pretend to run away;
Why do you have to play the game?
Like some kind of jealous lover,
I never will recover;
But it wasn't supposed to be that way;

You got me feeling pain and shame;
Don't pretend to run away;
Why do you have to play the game?
Like some kind of jealous lover,
I never will recover;
But it wasn't supposed to be that way;