"Gappy Teeth" is a (platonic!) love song to my best friend, who indeed has "gappy teeth" (which he hates; but I like -- because they are such a characteristic and therefore recognisable feature of his; and I like HIM enormously), but for reasons of discretion shall here remain nameless.

Like all friendships, ours has many, many positive aspects and we have enjoyed many happy times and high-points; including almost transcendent moments, like watching Blur at Glastonbury festival in 2009.

But we have also suffered the occasional low-point and bust-up. This is NOT at all one-sided: we have BOTH had moments when we have behaved badly towards one another. I notably remember one evening in Skegness in the autumn of 2018 (tellingly, when I have been drinking!), when I flew off the handle at him for no defensible reason and said some awful things to him that I now bitterly regret and am acutely ashamed of.

But this song retells a similar incident at another music festival when the shoe was on the other foot, and after a few too many, HE decided to tell me exactly what he thought was wrong...with a lot of things, but especially ME! (Ha! Ha! He may have had a point about a few things). Of course, like I had done in Skegness when I sobered up, he apologised...and now we are all good.

The point of the song is NOT to point fingers or relive painful memories of when we were at our worst (and God knows, he has witnessed ME at my worst too!) but about the fact we habitually have these moments; basically to explore the phenomenon.

My conclusion is that we have these periodic outbursts at each other for two reasons:

1) there is a lot of emotion invested in the friendship (accumulated over the years) which pops out from time-to-time and...

2) ...simply because we can! Because, ironically, we feel safe enough around each other to do so. Safe in the knowledge that WILL (eventually!) be forgiven. As the lyric goes:

"...It's a funny kind of compliment
To abuse your friends
You know you're in a safe space
They'll forgive you, in the end..."

So...in the end, it is not accusation, but a declaration. Like I say above, a love song to my best friend. x