I'm not 22 any more :(

or

On Music and Ageing

 

I was in my car the other day, listening to the radio, when Alanis Morissette's Hand in My Pocket came on air. I was immediately transported back to the summer (possibly Autumn, memory can be fickle) of 1995 and the impact her album, Jagged Little Pill, made on me.

At the time, I was very disillusioned with the excuse for music that was making the Irish and UK charts. It seemed to be dominated by manufactured boy bands who could neither sing nor play instruments. I was listening to Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bob Marlay, Iron Maiden, Tom Waits, Nick Drake, Aerosmith, Indigo Girls and Lir (they played some great gigs in Whelan back then). With the exception of the last three, they all belonged to a much earlier era. Oh, and Portishead. How could I forget Portishead (Reminded by CT ringing me - I have Strangers as her ring tone). There was very little new music that spoke to me.

Then came Alanis. The same age, roughly, as me, her anger and pathos resonated. I got her straight away. I felt that I could have written the songs myself. She could sing, she played instruments, she wrote her own songs and she was a heterosexual female.  A seemingly rare breed at the time.  Even if the events in her songs hadn't specifically happened to me, I knew the emotion behind it. And listening to the lyrics of "Hand in My Pocket" last week, I realised how much things have changed in those 17 years.


I could have written that song (well, if I'd had enough talent) in my early 20s. Nearly every word of it applied to me. But now everything has flipped over. Take this opening excerpt as an example:

           I'm broke by I'm happy
            I'm poor but I'm kind
            I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah"

Well, now I have money. While I'm not unhappy, I've lost that optimistic, seize every moment, life is full of possibilities feeling that I had at 22. I don't feel kind towards people - I'm grouchy and intolerant and my expectations are too high. And this year, I sure as hell haven't been healthy.

Even the chorus bit is mocking me - 

          'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
           And the other one is flicking a cigarette

I had to give up cigarettes after getting pneumonia in January and ever since then the world has become a so much darker place. Oh, to go back to the I feel drunk but I'm sober days instead of I feel sober but I'm drunk which is a more apt description of me nowadays.

I wonder how Alanis is doing...