avril“All my life I’ve been good,  but now, I’m thinking – what the hell” – Avril Lavigne.

I heard the Avril Lavigne song in the gym.

I’m not part of her target audience and while I like her sassy attitude I have never liked her music.

This song – What The hell – is just as irritating as her others but I can kinda see where she’s coming from.

I often feel my life is safe and conventional and this song gives permission to kick over the traces and say a general ‘fuck you’ to anyone you happen to regard as an oppressive force.

But what does this ‘freedom’ mean exactly. I thought I’d watch the video of the tune to get some pointers. What it means to Avril is:

  • the wanton destruction of someone else’s property (she steals and crashes a taxi)
  • promiscuity for its own sake (she leaves her guy and flirts with muscular basketball players)
  • shopping till she drops (using her ditched boyfriend’s credit card)
  • playing teenybop version of rock and roll with false histrionics

As a model of freedom, I would say that it leaves something t be desired. This is the kind of ‘rebellion’ that merely feeds the system she pretends to be fighting against.

Boring old fart I may be, but I prefer D.H. Lawrence’s more considered definition of what it mean to be free:

“Men are not free when they are doing just what they like. The moment you can do just what you like, there is nothing you care about doing. Men are only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes.”

It wouldn’t make a chart selling single, but it makes sense to me!