Here's a familiar story: Give yourself. Get hurt. Vilify the trouble-maker. Using that vilification as a foundation, build some structure of strength within yourself to support your defeated being. Notice that the aforementioned structure becomes an obstacle to the transmission of love in your life. ~ I think I heard Marianne Williamson say something like, “All the resentment you have for someone who caused you harm is a poison that you can carry around for the rest of your life. That toxicity affects you as much as it affects them.” I could be paraphrasing, or I could have completely made that up, I'm not sure. ~ After spending 5 years writing for OM Collective's [soon-to-be-released] debut album, the lead acoustic part for 'I Didn't Know I Was Trouble' was developed over only a couple of days, and hopes that impatient ears would be satisfied were raised. That was May 2014. There was still a string sextet, a $100 trumpet, and 18 months before anyone tasted the magical fruit of OM Collective's first single release on November 1, 2015. As the song assumed an almost-unrecognisable likeness to Taylor Swift's persecute-the-perpetrator anthem, 'I Knew You Were Trouble,' the writing of 'I Didn't Know I Was Trouble' became an exercise in forgiveness. The words subverted and spoken from the point of view of the antagonist, the creation of the song took place with mind and heart inside the life of a trouble-maker. And so it [the story] goes: Set out on the path of true forgiveness. Seek to understand the condition of the trouble-maker. Let this understanding found a feeling of empathy so real that it grows the ability to carry you off into an out-of-body experience. Let this empathy expand, deepen and enrich your intention to forgive. Notice that the aforementioned internal structure of strength (ie, obstacle to love) melts down into a magnificent puddle of warm pink wonderfulness via this process of understanding>empathy>forgiveness. This warm puddle of wonderfulness is love. A form of love that transcends all prior transgressions. “Unconditional” might befit such a love. Infuse (unconditional?) love with your forgiveness. Such purity of thought and intention washes toxicity away, and all that is left for the one who didn't know they were (or want to be, or have an autonomous choice in being) trouble, is love. ~ 'To forgive is to terminate a process of perpetuating negativity through the power of love and understanding.' ~ Love and forgive. <3 OM Collective [Original version, 'I Knew You Were Trouble' by Taylor Swift. Vocals by Jacob Pearson and Maia Jelavic. Backing vocals, trumpet, guitar, bass guitar, ukulele, violin, piano, drums and percussion attempted by Tim Ferson. Mixing and production by Tim Ferson.]