A few thoughts on the new Avril lavigne song "Alice" - I like it, first off, absolutely loving the screechy vocal, sounding raw, "literally", like sandpaper has rubbed her vocal chords raw. All the classic Avril Lavigne themes are there in the lyrics, "crying", "hitting the ground," all the stuff I generally go on about, and this feels like the welcome return of an old friend, rather than it becoming tired, like a painter using the same motifs throughout her career, returning, enlarging upon, questioning, not a simple rehashing of old terrain. This bodes well for the new album.
The one aspect of the song I'd like to highlight is the chorus's "I'll get by/I'll survive," which seems at odds with the intensity of the vocal - all this for simply getting by? Why not rising above, going beyond? One explanation - that from the previous albums search for an identity, where limits (of the self) are tested, here we have no more problems establishing an identity of one's own - going beyond the ordinary - here instead we have an Avril who views herself as fully grown, fully established in her own skin, and as such she is now happy "getting by" or "surviving," living with herself, with no need to go beyond herself. Whether we should view this as a triumph of the personal - she is finally happy as she is - or a failure of the political - there is no longer the utopian potential of the first two albums - or indeed whether they need to be entwined in Avril's music as they were in those first 2 albums , it's probably too early to say. Ignoring the subject, as the third album arguably did, would appear not to be an option this time round though...
