Today's Decomp: In The End by Linkin Park

I would say "don't get me started on this song", but getting me started is PRETTY much what this blog is FOR, right?

Let me preface this commentary on the quintessential teen angst song of the 2000's by explaining what I was DOING about the time this song came out:

As an adult, teen angst on a string is something that one doesn't ever really think they'll have to deal with again until it rears its Tommy Hilfigered, baggy jeaned, "in" crowded, head-up-its-own-assed head in the middle of a group of normal high schoolers, causing them to erupt into screaming fits, storming-out fits, general hysterics and haughtily whispered snatches of conversation that usually include phrases like, "that BITCH", "if she thinks", "well, I heard from so-and-so that", "we better go talk to her in the bathroom" and my all time favorite, "she bet'not put her hand in MY face, 'cause I WILL beat her ass down!"

All this comes to a heightened point of necessary catharsis, the nexus for all emotional distress and teenage torment, a sort of end all, be all of emotional disturbance and mind boggling acts of insanity...

...the high school play.

My job in 2001? High school drama director.

Okay, I did do OTHER things, too, but THIS was the job that sucked the soul out of me while simultaneously making me feel as uplifted as if I had done some great service for the world (which is what watching kids be creative for a month or more ALWAYS does for me).

Anyway, this PARTICULAR song was out right in the middle of that school year, right around the time of the play itself. The kids were always bringing in stuff for me to listen to, so let me show you the lyrics so you, too, can be awash in pubescence:

It starts with
One thing I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time

All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away

It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but didn't even know
Or wasted it all just to watch you go

I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how

I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised

It got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

Okay, aside from the pretty cool music, does anyone ELSE see this song as kinda whiny, in that teenage angst sorta way? I mean "Well, I tried, but it doesn't even MATTER, 'cause everything I do just SUCKS, so why even bother!" What's the new word for this...EMO, is it? (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, emo is the new word for goth kids, which was the new word for punk kids, which was the new word for...I dunno, greasers???)

I can't completely explain why this song gets under my skin, but I know from whence the original suffering comes from. I'm the eldest child in my family, so I was always the one responsible for everything. Once my brother got too old for my parents to do that "he's too young to know better" thing, I watched him run this "it doesn't matter, 'cause everything's always my fault and you're gonna blame me ANYWAY" game on my mom (Dad didn't buy that crap, since he knew the boy actually WAS guilty!) So, listening to someone whine about how they've done their best and in the end, it didn't matter, just seems like a GIANT cop out to me.

When I was a kid, if at first you didn't succeed, you tried, tried again. You didn't just sit and wallow in your own crapulence. Admittedly, the boys from Linkin Park have SORT of moved on in the song:

Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

But, why go back to whining about how hard you tried and how it didn't matter again? And worse yet, if you're REALLY beyond this chick (assuming chick since it's a guy band), then why exercise your constitutional right to piss and moan over a chick that totally destroyed your independence and self worth in the first place?

Suck it up, find a new girlfriend, and stop singing songs about how life sucks, emo boy (like that nice Alanis Morrissette did...oh, wait...!)