%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
|
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
Of all the songs on her discography (not including Love Sux, which I've been listening to a lot this year), this is probably the song of Avril's that I listen to the most. Every time it pops up on the radio or a playlist, I listen to it for an extended period of time. It was the lead single off this fourth album of hers, and even though this is ostensibly a love song (or at least a song about relationships), the chorus/refrain is something that I identify with more and more as I get older: All my life I've been good But now I'm thinking, "What the hell" All I want is to mess around And I don't really care about If you love me, if you hate me You can't save me, baby, baby All my life I've been good But, now what the hell What? What? What? What the hell? To me, this song has been more applicable to my job than my personal relationships lately. Disney just laid off another few hundred employees this week; it's the third quarter in a row they've suddenly laid people off with no warning, and it's now been almost two years of constant uncertainty and rolling layoffs as they've sought to streamline the organization. It used to be a company that people felt seen and valued at, and now we all feel like numbers on a balance sheet who are one quarterly earnings call away from getting abruptly called onto a Zoom video call with our boss and HR to be told that the company has eliminated our position to save overhead. Sadly, that makes them just like almost every other company I've worked for in my career. And I've spent my entire professional life working hard, over-delivering, and making a lot of sacrifices for the company's benefit. As have my coworkers, some of which had been at the company twenty-two, twenty-five, in some cases thirty-five years and now suddenly find themselves looking for new jobs at the tail end of their careers without much more than a perfunctory conversation with studio leadership. It definitely gets me into "now I'm thinking 'what the hell'" territory and wondering whether my work is worth the priority I give it in my life. Which is not to say that I'm planning on quitting or completely checking out; but I think the days of not taking my vacations and putting in tons of overtime might be coming to a close in favor of, you know, just putting in my hours and then going home at the end of the day. Anyway, I really enjoy this song because it's often a reminder to take ourselves a little less seriously. Sometimes you really do just have to say "what the hell" and have other people accept you for who you are, for better or worse. That's probably why this song finds its way onto my playlist rotation more often than most songs. (500 words) |
This was the first Avril Lavigne song that really convinced me that she was more than a pop artist. "Complicated" (the first single off her debut album) was obviously a huge hit, and the follow-up single ("Sk8er Boi") was really catchy and a massive hit of course, but this was the song that seemed to have some real emotional resonance behind it. 2002 is also the year when I first started dating my wife and this bittersweet but somewhat optimistic ballad was one that I listened to a lot in those early years when we were navigating our relationship. I'm clearly not the only one for whom this song resonated, because it also gained popularity by being featured on an episode of Scrubs, an episode of Smallville, and in the movie Bruce Almighty. It was also used for a handful of commercials, video games, and other uses... and was included in a movie soundtrack as recently as this year, when it was featured in Deadpool & Wolverine over twenty years later. Apparently I'm not the only one for whom this song really resonated! By the way, if you want to hear a really cool mashup, Yungblud (an artist Avril Lavigne subsequently featured on a future album, presumably at least in part because she discovered this mashup) did a crossover song between this one and Taylor Swift's "Cardigan" for BBC Radio 1 which you can watch here . Both Lavigne and Swift were fans of the mashup.(253 words) |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
