I'm Sorry, Therese - Klas Du Lence Production

I’m Sorry, Therese is a deeply personal song about first love, fear, regret, and a mistake that may have changed everything.

I was seventeen or eighteen, sometime around 1991 or 1992, when Therese became my very first girlfriend. For me, it was a big deal. Someone had finally chosen me, and I was terrified of losing her.

And somehow, despite being so afraid of losing her, I managed to do something that may have cost me the relationship.

I still don’t know for certain if that was why she left me so quickly. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. More than thirty years later, that’s something I’ll probably never know.

What I do know is how it felt. And that’s what this song is about.

I’m Sorry, Therese

I was seventeen…

maybe eighteen

I don’t remember the year

I remember the feeling

Someone looked at me

Like I mattered

I had spent so long

waiting for someone

anyone

to choose me

Then you came along

And I thought…

don’t let this go

Don’t ask questions

Don’t think too much

Just hold on

I didn’t know love

I knew fear

Fear of losing

the first person

who ever chose me

You went home that night,

and I kissed you goodnight…

and before the silence settled,

someone else saw me too.

Sara smiled

And everything changed

A moment…

A mistake…

A secret

I carried

I still wonder

Did you know?

Did you see it in my eyes?

Did you feel

that something was wrong?

We were only together

for a month

Maybe less

A small chapter

In a long life

But you were the first page

The first name

The first time

I thought

maybe I could be loved

I’m sorry, Therese

I’m sorry, Therese.

For the hurt you carried

and the truth I hid.

Both were mine to prevent.

I wasn’t ready

When you finally arrived

The Story Behind the Song

This song started with a memory.

Not necessarily a particularly important memory to anyone else, but one that stayed with me. Therese was my first girlfriend, and the relationship was short. We were young, and I had very little understanding of what a relationship actually meant.

Looking back now, I can see things I couldn’t see then. I can see the fear, the insecurity, the choices I made and the way I handled something that meant a lot to me.

What I also remember very clearly is that I knew, long before the relationship ended, that I had done something seriously wrong.

I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I just didn’t know how to handle it.

I could tell her what I had done and risk losing her right then, or I could keep quiet and hope that somehow things would work out — knowing that I might lose her anyway if the truth ever came out.

I chose the latter.

To this day, I don’t know which choice would have been the right one. Maybe telling her would have ended the relationship immediately. Maybe staying silent only made things worse. Maybe both choices would have ended the same way.

And there are also things I simply don’t know. I don’t know exactly why Therese ended the relationship so quickly. I have my own thoughts about it, but I wasn’t inside her head. I can only tell the story from my side and from the memories I still have.

That’s what made me want to write the song.

t’s not an accusation, and it’s not an attempt to make myself the victim. I know I was the bad guy in this story.

Sometimes I still think about Therese, not because I naively believe we would have stayed together and lived happily ever after, but because I wonder if I was one of her first real experiences of love and relationships too. If she ever found out what had happened, I can only imagine how deeply that might have hurt her.

I know how I would have felt if the roles had been reversed.

I’m sorry, Therese.

That’s part of why I wanted to write this song. Not to change the past, but to finally be honest about my part in it.

About the Production

The music for I’m Sorry, Therese was created using Suno, which I used as an AI music production tool. I then did some rough editing and adjustments in Audacity, before the final master was created using Mixea.

The story, lyrics and personal experiences behind the song are entirely mine. AI helped me turn my ideas into a finished piece of music, but it didn’t create the story or the experiences behind it. Those belong to me.