I first came across the new Avril Lavigne song when Jill gave the pop singer a stern talking to for being "bratty, and perpetually stuck in adolescence." But since I've been stuck in Chicago traffic with nothing but Top 40 radio to keep me company, I've actually listened to the wretched thing multiple times. And Christ is it bad. These have got to be the most immature lyrics ever set to paper: "She's like, so whatever/You could do so much better/I think we should get together now/And that's what everyone's talking about!" Squeal! And then there's this: "So when's it gonna sink in/She's so stupid/What the hell were you thinking?" It's the sort of writing that makes you wonder whether Avril is the mystery author behind the transcendent "You Touch My Hands For Stupid Reasons" (and yes, click on that link, give them your birthday, and turn up your speakers. You can thank me later.)
Glad as I am for an opportunity to link to "YTMHFSR," I have to say, Lavigne's joint is one of the few bits of pop culture that's ever depressed me. I'll take the gore, the violence, the sex and the drugs. But this is just ugly. Take the video: As Slate describes it, "Our black-clad heroine is a horrible little tyrant who subjects the preppy [girlfriend] to all sorts of torments before driving a golf ball into her head at a mini-golf course and leaping triumphantly into a Port-a-Potty with the boy. I may be too many decades removed from high school to really get this revenge fantasy, but the idea that we're supposed to cheer a revolution in which the ruling elite is replaced by creeps who enforce their will with golf-ball beanings seems like a perversion of the punk ideal." Agreed. That the song has morphed into some smash bestseller -- particularly on the heels of the Pussycat Doll song of a similar, though less vengeful, bent -- seems a sad commentary on our national id.
