Because of the Shame

This is a track from Florida punk rock band Against Me!'s fifth studio album, White Crosses. In the song, lead singer Laura Jane Grace, who was still identifying as male and using her birth name, Tom Gabel, sings about a girl who has her name tattooed on her skin. In a 2010 Songfacts interview with Grace, she said: "The song is a true story. My friend CC and I used to work at this bar in Gainesville called the Top. She was the bartender, I was the doorman. We used to hang out after closing, getting high, having drinks, listening to records. We both had each other's names tattooed. Life moved on and we fell out of touch. A little over a year ago I got a call telling me that she had been murdered. At the funeral her mother asked me to write a song for her, so I did. CC's favorite band was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, we used to listen to their albums often back in those days, I remember she had this grey jersey Bruce T-shirt she used to always wear at work. Her dad was also wearing a Bruce Springsteen shirt at the viewing. I wrote the song for her and I wanted to make sure she would like it, and I wanted something that was reminiscent of those memories so I wrote the song in Bruce's style."

According to Laura Jane Grace's memoir, this was written as more of an apology to her deceased former friend, who had thought Against Me!'s previous song "Thrash Unreal" was about her (it wasn't). Also, at the funeral, Grace was asked by CC's mother if she still had CC's name tattooed on her body, and Grace ended up lying because she suddenly felt terrible. Grace later did get the tattoo redone.