I love the song "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" by Broken Social Scene...last night I was driving home (late at night when all the dashboard lights and quiet music on in the car calms me so much) listening to the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack when BSS's song caught me by surprise. I didn't know it was on the soundtrack and hadn't heard it in a while and my breath caught in my throat the way it does when you're crazy about a song you think you only know about (more in a special "intimate" way than in a smug, selfish way).
I love the slightly whispery electronic, coldly distant (but still sad) sound to the singing voice and the lyrics, oh the lyrics!!
Used to be the one of the rotten ones
And I liked you for that
Now you're all gone, got your make-up on
And you're not coming back
Bleachin' your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under your breath
Bleachin' your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under my window
Park that car, drop that phone,
Sleep on the floor, dream about me
Used to be the one of the rotten ones
And I liked you for that
Now you're all gone, got your make-up on
And you're not coming back
There really is something about being seventeen (not sixteen, not eighteen, but seventeen!) that feels deserving of an anthem, like if you survive that age, you've earned your battle scars and can get through anything yet to come. Seventeen can be such a vulnerable age, whether you're going through a period of self-doubt, confusion, that hard-hitting bout of first love....puberty is usually associated with struggling to get through hard times, but I always thought seventeen was the age that really came at you with a vengeance.
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