Beaten half senseless with the blunt edge

Of a dozen sleepless nights

An hour can seem endless

When you’re wondering who your lover’s with tonight

It was much too complicated

To be reduced to simple terms of black and white

So tangled up in jealous love

When I talk to you I can’t even be polite

Shot down in flames

Shot down

Wondering who to blame

I recall when I first met you

I was much too self-contained to get involved

I already had my hands full

With another situation unresolved

You said my kind of love was heartless

Without possessiveness there’s just no love at all

And I took you at your word

And the feeling you belong to me evolved

Shot down in flames…

No sooner had I pledged myself

Than you began to make your distance clear

The depth of your affection

Began to look kind of like a thin veneer

You made your move I called your bluff

We sure knew how to create an atmosphere

We cut each other pretty deep

Though neither one would ever shed a tear

Shot down in flames…

I was paying off your bodyguard

With borrowed time and them my right to choose

Handcuffed to your treadmill

With my head on fire and gravel in my shoes

Till I fell wired out and helpless

On your backdoor step with no strength to refuse

I heard you whisper to your houseboy

This kind of thing is nothing I can use

Now you keep my picture in a frame

To remind you of a past we never had

Don’t send me no more letters please

The things you tell me only make me sad

Shot down in flames

Shot down

Wondering who to blame