Alanis Morissette Wakes Up...

I set my Winamp to random like any other weeknight. I just sat back on a bean bag, while enjoying a cigarette, and an alcoholic beverage. A vaguely familiar guitar riff astonishingly begins the next song. Then a voice and a message, that I haven't heard since way back when this song first came out.

I browsed through the files of my mind back to 1995 (because my brain did not have a search engine built-in). It was highschool for me back then (yes, I know I'm pretty old). And during those teenage years, the music at the time spoke a lot about the confusion and emotions of a solitary adolscent's life. During the time when people's opinions was a matter of life or death. And the line between "like" and "love" was blurry that they meant the same thing. There was never a clear delineation between two kinds of people. But I was definitely part of the group that aspired to enjoy your typical highschool memories of popularity; but never could.

Like Hiro Nakamura, I clicked the Back button and flipped my mind back to 2008. And somehow the concerns you had at the time were so trivial. But yet it feels vaguely relevant to your life experiences now. So the song now starts ringing in my ear.

(Be sure to press play right now on the YouTube video below, come on now, press left click)



(Be sure to read the lyrics as the video plays, of course)

Wake Up
by Alanis Morissette

You like snow but only if it's warm
You like rain but only if it's dry
No sentimental value to the rose that fell on your floor
No fundamental excuse for the granted I'm taken for

'Cause it's easy not to
So much easier not to
And what goes around never comes around to you

You like pain but only if it doesn't hurt too much
And you sit...and you wait...to receive
There's an obvious attraction
To the path of least resistance in your life
There's an obvious aversion no amount of my insistance
Could make you try tonight

'Cause it's easy not to
So much easier not to
And what goes around never comes around to you
To you to you to you to you to you...

There's no love no money no thrill anymore

There's an apprehensive naked little trembling boy
With his head in his hands
There's an underestimated and impatient little girl
Raising her hand

But it's easy not to
So much easier not to
And what goes around never comes around to you
To you, to you
get up get up get up off of it
get up get up get up off of it
get out get outta here enough already
get up get up get up off of it
wake up


Then you realize that exactly 10 years after the song's release, Alanis releases the acoustic version of the same song. Check it out below. It's not a music video. Some dude who had one too many pictures of Alanis, pieced the entire video together over audio from the album CD. Good for a listen nontheless.



Yes, I did like the "Jagged Little Pill" album. But it doesn't mean I secretly want to be a female rockstar. This is one of those songs that, personally, I feel like current emotions are so vaguely familiar to the emotions that weighed heavily on me during my teenage years.

There are other songs of similar effect, that were also released in the grunge/post-grunge era actually. I'll slowly post them up in here later on. And yes, I did grow up with grunge/post-grunge. So expect that I'll post about songs from the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Candle Box, etc. Alanis was just a safe teaser to get everybody in the door.

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