Track 4: "In Confidence"

Podcast

Sep 15

Welcome to I Owe You an Explication, I’m your host, Sean Della Croce and today we’re discussing the song “In Confidence”.

Stream Illuminations here: https://ffm.to/qqk1jjd

Cover Image by Alex Crawford

All songs written and recorded by Sean Della Croce

Produced by Alan Deremo

What this Song is About

The best place to start with "In Confidence" is in the title. It invokes a secret, but not just any secret, a shared secret. As in, "I told you that in confidence." I have a pet interest in Latin because I think it holds the key to so much meaning in the English language. So indulge me. The word confidence is really fun to break down. "Con" simply means "with" you can find it in words like "CONspiracy" "CONtingent" "disCONnect". And the latter part of the word confidence is comprised of the latin root word "fidere" meaning to trust or be faithful. You can find this in words like "Fidelity" or the common dog name "Fido". So while "in confidence" is a common English phrase, it's roots are deep, and that is what I'm referring to in this song. An alternative title for it could be "With Trust".

Now, if you were my therapist you would notice all of this deflecting. Here's what the song is really about: Years ago I was loosely romantically involved with a woman who didn't know if she was straight or not. I cannot speak to where she ultimately landed on the sexual identity spectrum, how she felt then, or how she feels now. But this song came to be after a series of , let's say, confusing interactions.

I live in the Bible Belt, so this phenomenon can usually be attributed to a certain level of religious shame. Again, I cannot speak for anyone but myself here, and I don't claim to understand the song's subject or her motivations. But long story short, I wrote this song in an effort to unpack the mystery. Many people are afraid to embrace their genuine sexual and romantic identities because they think that if they do, they will go to hell. What this song suggests is: you are already there. The closet is hell on earth. A holy hell. At least in my experience.

The Lyrical Crux

This song is probably the most lyrically sparse and repetitive on the record, and I think it suits the message. My favorite part of the song doesn't hinge on a big rhyme or metaphor, but rather a simple turn of phrase. "It's harder on you, it's harder on me".

This speaks to the core of the "In Confidence", which is about my struggle to feel sympathy for a person on her own journey. In this case another woman coming to terms with her sexuality, and what I wanted my involvement in that process to look like or not look like.

I only speak for myself, but I know I'm not alone when I say that many gay people, many queer people, forge their identities through personal struggle. That feels like an understatement. By the time that struggle resolved itself for me, I felt like I had earned something. Like I had earned the right to be myself. I think anyone can relate to the feelings you have when you get to that point—I'm not going to disrespect myself anymore, I won't allow someone else to disrespect me either, and I'm definitely not going to lie in order to make other people more comfortable. So when I was writing this song, this letter, and I hit that line, "It's harder on you," the still small voice inside my head said, "no, it's harder on me."

The listener can make of that what they will, and if you look at the lyrics you'll see that each refrain ends with some iteration of this phrase: "it's harder on you", "it's harder on me", and finally, just, "it's hard". Sometimes when I feel the impulse to pass blame around, I have to stop and ask myself, who is really at fault. Is it you? Is it me? Or is it our circumstance?

Music Notes

The primary musical force behind this song was an early Ben Howard record from 2011 called Every Kingdom. Songs like "Only Love" and especially a tune called "Under the Same Sun" were big influences on the groove of this song and the way it unfolded musically. As a bonus: if you want to cry, listen to a song called "Gracious".

I'm playing a Collings dreadnought (D1-A) Tuned in DADGAD on this song, and if you listen closely you can hear the tapping on the guitar in the chorus as a sort of percussive thread. If I recall this was done live alongside the guitar take, and it's played simultaneously with the chords in the chorus which are slapped rather than strummed.

With all of this going on, it's a hard song to play live, and I really never take it with me on the road, but I love it dearly and as a result I probably hold it even closer to my heart than some others.

Closing Reflections

When I really think about it, this song emerged from INFATUATION and to me, by the end, that resolves into SENSE. I love the word infatuation because it is so perfect for the thing it describes. The word is derived from the Latin "fatuus" which means foolish. When a person is infatuated they are in-fooled, made into a fool. Isn't that just the truth? Luckily that doesn't last forever, but the very nature of infatuation means that once you realize you're there, it has probably gone on too long. Maybe the real alternate title for "In Confidence" should be "In Fatuated". Holy hell, I was a fool.