Anything but Ordinary

Avril Lavigne  Let Go
Oh the teenage angst! I was 16, it was a time where you felt like your feelings betray you, you’re always conflicted…

Losing Grip: As soon as I played this song I was in love again; It is so good! Why should I care? The lyrics are so simple and honest. If only we had appreciated that in our teenage years..

Complicated: This was the radio hit, but I think Losing grip is a better song. I do still love this song, it is a pretty good description of my transition from junior high to high school, not fitting in anymore, feeling like all of my friends have changed who they are and left me behind, and finding the one friend who would stay constant and honest with me. (Thanks Sarah!) Lately as I have been working with the teenagers at the treatment home, I have been telling them that the one thing I have learned that made dating easy was being open and honest, that we think the opposite sex is playing a game so we try to play and that makes them play, and no one is being true to themselves and are all confused… we all make it too complicated!

Sk8er Boy:  This song is so iconic of the early 2000s. Spelling words with numbers, being so hung up on the stereotyped person… I think this song also started the MTV craze of teenaged mother shows…

I’m With You: I actually still love this song, it is a great blend and perfect for those cold nights that you are alone but wishing you were with that guy… I think this song really does a great job of depicting a night you are at a random party in high school and you feel alone and wish someone was looking for you, to make you feel important.  I also love that when I was 15 I thought I couldn’t sing the word Damn, so I would say dang. Ha..

Mobile: This isn’t my favorite song on the CD, but it always gets me tapping my finger, nodding my head, singing along to the chorus. I use to think that she said ”everything is changing, I’m immobile” Which I think could work too, but she is talking about a mobile that hangs from the ceiling, spins in the wind. I think that if the words were actually immobile, it would show that she doesn’t want to change, she is stuck in the past and can’t handle the changes. This might also be true about her being a mobile, that she has no say in what she does and must change. So perfect for an adolescent, not knowing what part of your self to be and when…

Unwanted: This is a moodier song, a little darker. 

Tomorrow: to me, this song sounds like one from the Josie and the Pussycats movie… (not that I saw that and love that soundtrack…) This song reminds me of when you can’t really handle things today, and you don’t know how you will be feeling tomorrow either, but you just can’t deal with things right now. I think this song can also be one about hope, that tomorrow will be a different day, it could be different, better. 

Anything but Ordinary:  I don’t entirely remember why I thought this was cool, but I distinctly remember in 8^th grade health class, we had to draw a picture of ourselves and be some type of super hero… or write about some of our qualities… and somehow I decided to name myself “Super Loser” and it was a good term… I think that this song explains why, I didn’t want to be ordinary. I wanted to be different, because I was different. I have laughed myself to sleep (maybe not quite true… but I sure loved laughing and did it often!) 

Things I’ll NEVER Say:  Ahh, we were 16? So in love… at EFY… singing to our teddy bears and thinking of those sweet boys. Wishing our lives away with things we would never say to those attractive men… It is a cute little song, but it will always remind me of Sarah and how we loved Phil Collins? All the pranks we played, all the late night chats… It was a good time to be a teen!

My World: What I love about this song is how she just tells about all of her little quirks. One of my favorite things is to go into a lot of detail about the little things I do, why I love something. I have always loved filling out those “Get To Know You” surveys that we use to get in e-mails when we were 13. I just love how light and fun this song is, she’s just happy being in her world, being herself and she is confident in herself. A good lesson for youth!

Nobody’s Fool: I think she was trying to rap in this song… not my favorite but it isn’t too bad. The chorus is actually pretty good. I still don’t really know what the line “I’m not the milk and cheerios in your spoon” means… but I kind of dig it. 

Too Much to Ask: this is the song you’d go to if you had just been dumped or hurt by your boyfriend. That anything you do isn’t enough to please him. I see now that that was a time I was in a very unhealthy relationship, but you aren’t quite aware of that when you’re in it or a teenager. Hopefully I can help my kids see the difference when I am a parent. 

 Naked: I like this song. It flows well and I like how she sings, I like the message of being real with yourself and others, seems like that's the main message I've gotten from this cd this listen through.

Overall: Listening to this CD made me want to be in my car blasting the songs, and singing really loud! I was in the Laundromat instead… so that wasn’t as much an option to me. It made me quite nostalgic, thinking of when I was 15-17, going to BFD with Sarah and Katie, getting tickets to the Avril Concert and trying to get her signature afterwards, sitting in the movie theater in Utah when my crush “Spiderman” came in and told me that Sarah and I had gotten tickets to the concert, It was a more carefree time in my life and I enjoyed it! 

Buy the cd here