Some of the toughest fights in love aren’t about having the strength to walk away, they’re about having the strength to forgive yourself for staying. That’s the essence of Exzenya’s “Forgiven For The Last Time” (a piano and vocal ballad) which takes the concept of heartbreak and turns it into a very real, very honest look at regret, responsibility and emotional healing. It kicks off with a real sense of tension, a shaky voice and a very charged situation which is clearly the point of a very difficult conversation about to break. The narrative then takes a surprising turn and instead of being about the person who caused the pain, it’s all about the guilt of having believed in empty promises, of having stayed in a toxic relationship and of having let that deception go on to affect the whole family. It’s a song which is less an accusation and more a very personal confession.
Right at the heart of the track is that potent refrain: “It wasn’t him that needed my forgiveness, I needed to forgive me.” That’s the emotional spine of the song and gives the chorus a real sense of authenticity. Exzenya doesn’t flinch from the heft of the regret, particularly in the line “I chose to stay when long ago I should have left” which is so very much a line you can relate to if you’ve ever looked back on a relationship and wondered what you might have done differently. The lyrics move from self-pity to acceptance in a very natural way, with the realisation that you can’t always wait for the other person to come to their senses and apologise. The music is very sparse, just piano throughout with a very restrained vocal performance. There’s no need for any kind of big musical explosion; the emotional arc of the song is all that’s required.
What really makes “Forgiven For The Last Time’ such a powerful song is the way it deals with the healing process without in the slightest bit of pretence that it’s easy to let go. As the song progresses the emotional intensity starts to drop, moving from a place of pain through into a much calmer, more peaceful state of mind. The piano is still very light, very subtle, just there to support the emotion without getting in the way at all. By the time Exzenya gets to the final lines “Only now begins the healing inside of me” you really feel that that is the point. It’s a lovely way to end a song about the process of getting over a period of your life where you’d allowed so much pain to become a part of the fabric of your everyday existence. It’s a very real, very heartfelt ballad and a very good one at that. ‘Forgiven For The Last Time’ is a great example of a song that you can genuinely feel the healing in.
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