This afternoon I revisited my teenage years, in the form of Spotify. I was checking out some new music came across some older stuff and that made me crave some good old angsty rock.
Enter Alanis Morissette.
Jagged Little Pill, although probably inappropriate at the time, got me through the teenage years.
I can’t remember if I was 15 or 16 but my friends dad took us to the concert. Being an amateur rocker in the making, I’ll never forget what I wore. Polyester shirts were big back then. The ones that had buttons down the front and made you sweat on the coldest days. I wore a BRIGHT yellow polyester shirt. I didn’t have to think about being cool, I knew I was…or so I thought. I would learn later from a journal entry that my friend, the one that invited me to the show, was embarrassed by my shirt. Apparently her purple paisley print button down polyester shirt was much cooler than my bold yellow one.
I hate the color purple.
Regardless, our mutual friend and I waited in the back seat of her dad’s Buick while she got to pump the gas. Back then, if you pumped the gas you were border line driving; we were jealous.
The concert, although not my first, was everything I wanted it to be. We knew all the words and sung at the top of our lungs. It was hot, sweaty, foggy, loud, stinky, bright and dark all at the same time. When the stage lights briefly passed by our faces we thought we were center stage.
All the teenage angst oozed out of our pores right by Alanis’s side.
Isn’t that the greatest gift music offers? The gift of understanding, belonging and knowing you’re not alone, you are just human. It doesn’t matter if you sing completely off key or you don’t sing at all music connects us.
Today, it was exactly what I needed. A train track leading right back to feeling connected. But it got me thinking… what is the teenage angst group of today? Do they even have one? When all those hormones are ready to explode how do the teenagers of today deal?
Hopefully they have a group, but in the case of needing one Alanis and Pat Benatar helped me! Which album/group helped you through your teenage years?
Side note: my make up changes according to what I’m listening to, which I’ll admit is really fun!
Namaste,
Jes xoxo