Recently someone on formspring asked me to create a playlist of songs that helped me to survive high school.
This is an easy one because back then I was super serious about music, it was my number one coping mechanism. At some stage during 1999 I decided that I was going to avoid all healthy adolescent interactions by buying a portable CD player and never taking my headphones off in the corridors ever unless it was to ‘educate’ my classmates about rock and punk icons like I was the only person in the whole world who truly understood their art.
Like most teens newly infatuated with rock ‘n roll, I started wearing black t-shirts and studded leather, scrawling my favorite song lyrics onto the canvas of my Converse and blowing off my classes to jam in the music room. I was all like, ‘studying is for suckers! I don’t need to know math to become a tour manager! yeah! rock on!’, which was a significant lapse of judgment, kids – studying is important and you absolutely need to know math to be a tour manager.
So that was my 15 year old self in high school, for better or worse, and these are some of the songs that spurred me on.
1. Brain Stew – Green Day
2. A Certain Shade of Green – Incubus
3. Down By The Water – PJ Harvey
4. Heroin Girl – Everclear
5. Use Once & Destroy – Hole
6. Aneurysm – Nirvana
7. Closer – Nine Inch Nails
8. Transylvanian Concubine – Rasputina
9. Street Spirit (Fade Out) – Radiohead
10. I Fought The Law – The Clash
11. No Sleep Till Brooklyn – Beastie Boys
12. Criminal – Fiona Apple
13. Been Caught Stealing – Jane’s Addiction
14. 36 Degrees – Placebo
15. Shaking – Our Lady Peace
16. Shutterbug – Veruca Salt
17. Bullet With Butterfly Wings – The Smashing Pumpkins
18. My Own Summer (Shove It) – Deftones
You can stream the playlist here
What songs helped / are helping you get through high school?
Want to request a playlist? Hit me up on Formspring and someone of the team might create it for you.
