forgiven not forgotten

[chinadoll]

what does this mean...is it that the speaker is bearing a grudge....wont be fooled twice....(I know it was a song by the corrs) ......it seems quite ambiguous....am I reading too much into it?

[IndieSinger]

I've always presumed it's quite literal. You're right in that it means the speaker is bearing a grudge, but I don't think there's anything deeper there. Whatever the person did to upset the speaker was not so drastic that s/he can't be forgiven, but it was severe enough to make the speaker unable to forget the situation.

[andy hughes]

It always reminds me of the Jews and the Nazis - the Jews say "we will forgive ... but we will never forget."

I don't think it's about bearing a grudge, I think it's more about guarding against the same circumstances happening again - and that applies to either extreme - a Holocaust on one side, a relationship break-up on the other.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Agree with Andy - it's saying 'Okay, you're forgiven, but that doesn't mean you can go and do it again and expect to get away with it.'

[Clare A]

I think this is one of the Corrs' best songs. I always thought it contained an element of yearning - that the love-object could be forgiven for whatever s/he had done, but that there would always be a lingering sense of remembering what was good (and bad!) about them. Happens in real life. I got a call out of the blue from my ex-boyfriend asking me to attend his Dad's funeral ('the old man always liked you'). I went. Nuff said.