The second track on the new album, "Kiss and Tell" is 'Unjustified'.
'Unjustified' is a real roller coaster, stripped back, remorse song.. It's the kind of song that Simon Cowell would hate. A lonely guitarist standing on a stage, singing mournfully about his own woes.... Well, it's no less valuable for that (IMO)!!
Who doesn't have questions about whether to stay or go? I'm old enough to remember playing pool in the Point Hotel in Rhyl with friends, when the Clash' "Should I stay or Should I go" came on the jukebox. It was 1982 and that clangy, distorted, power riff blew my mind... it still does. SISOSIG is not just a great tune though... it's a great song, because it asks the question that, 40 years later, there is still no answer for. Nobody knows which is the right thing to do. We do our best... 'Unjustified' asks the same question, but slightly differently.
The song is written in first person and when the singer says:
"I don't know how much more I can take"
It's not because he's bored and has had enough... It's because he knows he has stolen someone's heart and he feels terrible... he hates what he has done... but he still did it!!
"I took your heart and I watched it break..."
"Your trust in me is just unjustified".
You have to have a heart of stone if you don't empathise with that... The killer lines for me (and I'm biased, of course), are in the chorus:
"So I'll try to walk away, 'cause I know that if I stay
I'm gonna lose the best thing in my life".
And there you have it. Should I stay or should I go? Do I know the answer...? No chance.. That is why there are so many "hey, hey hey's" in the spaces in this song. I needed to fill the space but there were no more words... I had no wisdom to offer, no wise words to say, so I "hey, hey, hey'd" my way through the space.
I still think it's a good song, even if I copped out of answering the question. Well, what is your answer..? Let me know
Crispin x
PS: Finally, this is the song that I get asked about the most, usually along the lines of, "is it based on your own experience"? Hmmm... Well, all songs are based on experience; some your own, some other people's... I wrote a song a few year back, called "Paris, Illinois" - You can find it on Spotify, under my "Crispinsongs" page if you want to listen.. It has a verse:
"Well, you ripped my jeans and you broke my nose
And you took me to Urbana and stole my clothes
You tore my shirt and you crushed my soul
And you left me lying naked at Jackson Hole".
For the record, this never happened to me!!!! I don't know that it actually ever happened to anyone (I hope not), but it is still based on experience.. because you take the pain you have felt in your life and you juxtapose it... I have definitely felt as bad as if the "Paris, Illinois" stuff had happened to me, and setting in the State of Lincoln was a bit of artistic licence that definitely helped my creativity flow... :-)
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