A Song That Makes Me Feel Guilty | Got Your Tape and It Changed My Mind

This song made me cry over someone else once, someone who was lying right beside me when it happened.

That was over within a year. But it was still years before I could listen to the song without hurting.

Now I can. Sometimes, I feel bad about it.

What happens when you love a song more than you respect the memory of what it stood for? It was ours, but I had to make it not ours after a while. There had been other “us”s by then, and presumably other songs, but that one had always stayed where it belonged.

I never made a decision to take it back for myself, to use it for my own selfish gains, to listen to it again without feeling all the hard things that it had made me feel.

That doesn’t change the fact that sometimes I listen to it and feel like I stole something from someone, that I took something that doesn’t belong to me.

I don’t think that I will ever feel completely free of guilt.

3 comments

  1. Josie

    I think that the guilt means that you do respect the memory.
    But I also think that we can’t let every song we loved with someone else become a ghost, or else we’ll run out of good songs.

  2. leah

    “i’m fallin in love too fast with you or the songs you chose.”

    one of my fave semisonic songs. also like “secret smile.:

  3. Danielle

    i love this song! i don’t think you should permanently exclude a song from your life because of the memories it contains. it takes time to allow back in, but songs like this are worth it!

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