AYoS premier…

I‘ll admit it. This song started just ’cause I liked the sound of the title. It seemed to resonate with my “Sure, I’m guilty — so what?” attitude in the days when I wrote it — as well as my not-entirely-whimsical fascination with the notion of the trickster-teacher. Mix with a little half-baked metaphysics and serve cold…

The lyrics, themselves, sort of spilled out as soon as I wrote down the title.

Which is not to say they are in any way irony free. In fact, I felt, reading them back, like I recognized a facile if far-fetched rationalization for my particularly careless — even callous — treatment of a long-ago love.

Whether my subconscious, guided by the muses, was trying to make sense of the emotional confusion of early love or merely looking for a convenient metaphysical fig leaf, my conscious mind liked the cognitive dissonance of it all.

Internet Archive page for this recording

Mea Culpa, Baby

Mea culpa, baby
means I’m guilty, I’m the one
I’m the one who broke your heart
but it wasn’t just for fun

I watched as your friends turned away
when you turned to me
I laughed as I left you alone
I set your little soul free

I’m not going to tell you
where I hid your heart
you’ll just have to figure out who I am
You must go back to the start

I am everything you are not
I’m the other side of the line
Just a matter of push and pull
but the boundary always hides

[circa 1975]

(C)2006, TK Major