Tuesday, June 21, 2011

music & memories: volume 2


I'm playing this little game again, even though no one linked up to it last week. What can I say, I like to talk about myself. AND I thoroughly enjoyed the comments, especially when my sister described my brother in his Coke-bottle glasses doing the Bus Stop. Which I now want to learn.

Anyway. This week's song (well, album): Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill"


When I was ten years old, I had never been to summer camp. Summer camp -- sorry to all the parents out there, but it's true -- is where all of us sheltered kids without older siblings around learn to curse.

That was the year I bought Jagged Little Pill. I bought it because its first single was catchy, even if I didn't understand the lyrics. I bought it because it was cool, and the story of my life at that time was attempting to be cool while secretly playing with dolls after school. But I also bought it because I knew, through the grapevine, that the F word was in that CD.

I was ten years old, and it was high time I heard the F word used in a sentence. My daily leisure time activities, aside from playing with dolls, consisted of reading Baby Sitters Club books and watching Full House, and obviously Claudia Kishi and Uncle Joey weren't going to be doing anything so lewd as to allow for use of the F word, right? I had to take matters into my own hands.

So I sat in front of our combination radio and record/cd/tape player that was taller than I was, pushed aside the Lion King soundtrack and The Best of Disney CD and put my new treasure into the 6 disc changer. I'm sure it was at that moment that I discovered the perfect road trip album (because I'm a sing-while-driving type of girl), the perfect angry feminist album (because sometimes those moods just happen), and just how perfect the F word was for expressing pure disgust.

Okay fine, that last part isn't true. I probably didn't understand what was really going on in that song until high school. But I did learn the rest of my curse words that summer at camp. I also acted out a fake wedding for a stuffed ghost and a stuffed elephant. Oh, to be ten again.

Does early 90s angry lady rock conjure up any memories for you? Let me know in the comments - or write a blog post about it (I didn't think I could come up with 326 words about Alanis Morisette, but it just happened) and enter your link here so others can see it:




5 comments:

  1. oh my gosh you were so much cooler than i was lol. i don't think i had any "real" CDs until i was maybe...13?

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  2. I was but a lass of 14 when Jagged Little Pill debuted. But at 14 I was the most emo of all my years. I was dating my first love at the time (for the first time -- we were very off/on). When times were good I'd handwrite the lyrics to "Head Over Feet" to pass to him at school. When times were tough I'd write "You Learn." And when times were REALLY tough I'd cry into my pillow with "You Oughta Know" on full blast. Alanis got me through a lot that year. And to this day when I'm feeling really angsty, I drive down the highway with You Oughta Know on full blast raging along with her.

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  3. 1. Okay, sorry I haven't commented on your blog in, like, a year. I'M BACK.

    2. Omg this was the first album I bought and once in a while I 100% admit to transporting myself back to fourth grade! I will never forget the video for "Ironic."

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  4. haha i loved that cd so much. i remember listening to it at, like, the age of 9 and my mom saying something like, "i'm not sure you understand what's going on here..."

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  5. A, I love that! I wish writing song lyrics on a note was still an acceptable way to express your feelings.

    S, I'VE MISSED YOU! What were you doing, studying the LAW or something stupid like that? PSH. May I request the return of your blog?

    J, did your mom try to explain it to you? I can only imagine how hilariously awkward that would have been! PS, I love your blog :)

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