5pm_weds | fifty-one (Reply)

Hand In My Pocket
Alanis Morissette
Jagged Little Pill
1995

I got this CD out a couple of weeks ago (around the same time I bought that Rolling Stone book on music in the 90s). It wasn't only weird to listen to it again, but weird to have it in my hands. It was like being reunited with something that I would have included in a 1995 time capsule (had I made one). I listened to this CD a lot, and when I saw it again I flashed back to it being frequently out on my white, melamine Ikea bureau, near my first CD/tape deck (I have a few CDs like this...ones that I remember as being kind of semi-permanent accessories in my room because they were rarely shelved away...Tori's Little Earthquakes is another example).

I got this CD on December 25th, 1995. I was in grade 7. I think I probably had a completely shocked expression on my face when I tore the Christmas wrapping paper off and revealed Jagged Little Pill because my mom was totally against me listening to (let alone owning) this CD. I was a pretty naive thirteen-year-old. I didn't quite get everything Alanis was singing about, but I knew that I liked the way her music sounded...the and bubbling anger of "You Ought to Know" and the gentle beat and whine of her voice and that harmonica on the second single "Hand In My Pocket". It's funny now that I think about it--I guess it reflects the way I was brought up--but it never occurred to me to secretly buy this CD, or to have a friend copy it to a tape for me. So, I listened to the (edited versions) of the two songs I had taped off the radio during Rick Dees's Weekly Top 40. Still, I begged my mom for Jagged Little Pill. I promised her that I wouldn't listen to it THAT much and that I'd swiftly turn down the volume to censor out the swear words (the use of "chickenshit" was a particularly contentious issue).

My mom surprised me when she gave me this CD (she said it was from Santa, but like I wasn't THAT naive, haha). I like thinking that she trusted me enough, that she thought I was responsible enough to handle it. I can't imagine not having this CD as part of my collection and the makeup of my life. It presented a little shift in the type of music I listened to and the way I listened to it. This CD had substance. It was angry. As a thirteen-year-old that made me pretty uncomfortable. BUT, I'd like to think that in that discomfort I started to realize that expressing anger wasn't bad or wrong (even if it did involve dropping the f-bomb).

I decided to post "Hand In My Pocket" because of the above-mentioned "chickenshit" clause and because now, at twenty-nine, I've discovered that I relate to the lyrics differently, more fiercely. I can't help but be comforted by them.

"I'm lost, but I'm hopeful...I'm young and I'm underpaid...I care, but I'm restless...I'm here, but I'm really gone..."

"What it all comes down to, is I haven't got it all figured out just yet" and that is fine, fine, fine.