![\"Burning](\"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/ayearofsongs\/images\/blogimages\/burningandbitter.jpg\")
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I<\/span>‘ll admit it.<\/p>\n I haven’t always been the paragon of street-smart, wised-up self-knowledge and steely-eyed maturity that I am today.<\/p>\n In fact, even when I was old enough to know better but still young enough to have not yet been smacked down really, really hard, I could be a bit of a jerk.<\/p>\n As one of my other, much later songs had it, “I let you down hard and I blamed it all on you,” which pretty much summed up my standard operating procedure in those days. Narcissistic.<\/p>\n The slip of a song below (from 1975 or so) is a case in point.<\/p>\n You’d think, from the scant lyrics, that the girl in question was a she-devil, a high priestess of temptation of Biblical proportions.<\/p>\n She was actually a very down-to-earth, warm, passionate young working mom in her mid-twenties, a couple of kids to feed and clothe, just starting out on what would be a very successful career as a health professional. We were romantically entangled for the better part of a year, the kids and I liked each other, I liked her, she liked me… but I wouldn’t commit to an exclusive relationship with her — on principle, I said — and she eventually blew me off a bit unceremoniously. (As I so richly <\/span>deserved.)<\/p>\n But at least I have this song…<\/p>\n\n