What Avril Lavigne’s “Let Go” taught me
Two decades ago, a high school dropout dropped into my young life and changed it. What was it about Avril Lavigne that had me fixated from the time I was a preteen? I can’t say I remember, but when I look back at the music video for her debut single “Complicated,” I can piece some ideas together. The 16-year-old singer was everything I was not. The song has more of a country twang than a punk vibe, but Lavigne plays her guitar in a loose tie, baggy pants and sneakers. The video depicts her and her (male!) band members wreaking havoc in a mall between shots of the group performing at a skate park.
The single came out only a day after my ninth birthday. I would not, could not be her. Three months later, though, I did get my hands on the Let Go album and play the CD religiously on my Walkman. I also attempted to look the part. An unfortunate side effect of The Avril Influence was my desire not to be like “other girls,” to say goodbye to pink and dresses — things I genuinely liked — in order to seem cooler. (It didn’t work. I was no cooler in pants than I was in skirts.) I can’t bring myself to regret this, though, because it was an important part of exploring my identity. I gravitated toward dark clothing and bought spiked bracelets from Claire’s. I even briefly (VERY briefly) tried to take up skateboarding. However, a couple of boys in my class came down on me pretty hard for that last one: “I saw you in your driveway. You suck.”
Granted, I did suck. And as much as I wanted to give the impression I didn’t care what other people thought, I still felt the sting of their cutting remarks. This brings me to an underappreciated track on Let Go: a song called “Unwanted.” It isn’t exactly a lyrical masterpiece, but that’s not the point. It was angry. Young girls like me weren’t allowed to get angry. I couldn’t scream at my parents or the boys in my class without getting into trouble. But here was Lavigne, almost yelling more than she was singing: “You don’t know me, don’t ignore me.”
This, I think, is the crux of Lavigne’s importance to me. I don’t tend to follow her music these days — I haven’t in years. I have my fair share of criticisms of her now, such as the internalized misogyny apparent in “Sk8er Boi” (and a couple of albums later in “Girlfriend”). However, she did give me a gift. Whether she was shouting into a mic or smashing a guitar, she helped me appreciate my own passion and rage. Today, I’m grateful for my anger and the anger of other women. Last year, I rolled my eyes at the pearl-clutching over Phoebe Bridgers’ own guitar smash on Saturday Night Live. David Crosby called the performance “pathetic,” which is perhaps unsurprising coming from someone who benefitted from the cultural landscape of the ’60s: a musical era rife with misogyny and racism. But I digress.
Rage can be a powerful tool for those of us who are often told to get smaller and quieter. Even though I never met Lavigne, she changed the way I viewed female anger. Flaws and all, she influenced the woman I am today.
