So I, like anyone who does what I do, often take jokes from other people. I don’t know if everyone does the same, but I know Todd does, as he helps me write my episodes and I help him write his. Well, “write” is a strong word, really if party A says something funny party B will write it down and either incorporate it into our script or not. In City of Angels I know it was a bit blurred- he helped me try to figure out Himmel, and a lot of the Nicolas Cage jokes. The bit about pajamas was his, as well as sex being his favorite part of living. Pears was mine. For “If I Die Young” I can claim a couple- “the touch the feel of satin, the fabric of our…” and of course the “You understand my pain, (shitty band)” gag. Now, though Todd and I disagree on, well, most things, we really come together on how awful this song is, which I want to have a word on in non-video form because I’ve seen some people jump to the defense of the song. If they like it, that’s their business, but I want to explore it a little more. He did leave out a couple things we’d talked about, which I wanted to touch on to really drive home how vapid this song is, the first of which being, how you tackle this subject right:
I don’t have much to add; I’ll let that speak for itself.
See, “If I Die Young” is an incredibly self-centered song, which is what disturbs me about it; to me, it’s really telling of the me-centric attitude our culture is taking, which is why I compare it to “Passage”, which never once mentions the dying person’s desires. I imagine that’s why “If I Die Young” is a hit and “Passage” is not, nor would it ever be. “If I Die Young” is twee, romanticized and has a heavy set of blinders on. It kind of reminds me of the romanticizing of tuberculosis in the 19th century, how you waste away to a frail thing that other people have to take care of but you leave a porcelain doll for a corpse that everyone can look at and contemplate. “Passage” is haunting, and has no agenda, save for the painful tragedy that dying young is.
Which brings me to point two: Clearly, this person does not know anyone who has died young. I have; I knew four. None of them left behind cute corpses.
None of them were best friends or siblings; they were friends, in one case a student, or in the first case my best friend’s sister. She was four or five. I was eight, so I didn’t really care, having only the faintest concept of mortality at the time. And I can say I didn’t get it, and if my best friend did she hid it well; we had no concept of what was going on, or that she wouldn’t pull through. But I can say that that young death did tear that family apart, in many ways. That one was brain cancer.
The next three were more gruesome. Number one was James- I mentioned him in the TLC video. I won’t go into details, but he was murdered, and his body wasn’t found for weeks. It wasn’t an open casket. He was nineteen.
Then came JB- oddly enough the guy through whom I met my current roommate, Paco. He was hit by a car on Park avenue in Harlem, running from some muggers. For a while we were fearful that he would become a white conservative rallying cry that his death was a hate crime, but the police shot that one down pretty quickly. An interesting example of no one giving a shit who he was, though they sure were quick to hop to use him for their horrible agenda. He was twenty.
Then was Sandy- I detail his death in a blog entry about a year ago. He died in a car accident between LA and Bakersfield. He was twenty.
Let me remind the reader that tragedy is not a contest. You see this a lot in insecure people; when someone shares a story, someone else tries to negate their story with a tragedy of their own that’s even worse, to show that they have no right to feel the way they do. My point’s not to out-sad anyone, my point is to drive home how simply un-romantic young death is. It is meaningless, it is painful, and it very rarely leaves behind a cute corpse that one can dress in satin and lay down in a bed of roses. How romantic!
No, young death is painful and usually violent. Anyone who would write a wistful, self-centered song like this… either doesn’t know the reality of what it does to people, how painful and meaningless it is, or just doesn’t care!
So my treatise is this; it’s bad enough to encourage the nuanced me-centric narcissism that is engulfing the globe, slowly and surely, but let’s not use a romantic young death as your vessel to get that idea across. Trust me, young death is many things; romantic it ain’t.
You can see Todd’s review, here:
Great post. You’ve nailed a lot of the reasons why I dislike that song so much. My cousin lost her fiancee a few years back, they were in their early 20s and it was sudden, unexpected, and terrible. They were supposed to get married not too long after it happened and it nearly ruined her. So yes, yes to all of this.
Oops, forgot to finish the post. Please delete it in favor of this one.
Heavy shit man. Heavy shit.
I often find myself trapped in a car that I’m not driving. I don’t like to complain, so I don’t bother telling the driver to change the radio station, which is one of those Lite FM deals. If I had to choose between listening to “If I Die Young” and, say, “Hey There Delilah” I choose the former. At least the majority of shallow songs by female singers today are tolerable. I can’t say the same for male singers.
Still, don’t you think you’re giving too much energy toward explaining an admittedly stupid song?
For the sake of the comments not turning into a depressing one-up contest, I will refrain from sharing my “young death” story, even though it’s not really mine. Suffice to say that I also agree with all of this, even the “me-centric” culture you touched on. Great post; now if everybody would just catch on.
I really like that you use “Passage” as an example of doing it right. That song is wonderful, and I agree that it shows the horrible effect that a young death has on everyone: the friends, the family, even casual acquaintances, and sometimes even the person responsible for the death.
I’ve never cared for the “If I Die Young” song, and I think you explained why in more depth than I’d considered. It’s so self-centered, and makes it out to be some beautifully tragic thing, instead of a life-shatteringly awful tragic thing.
While I can’t say that I hate the song outright, the line “Funny when you die, how people start listening” has been making me uncomfortable for months. Even before Todd reviewed it, I had zeroed in on that line and figured out the song was a narcissistic death fantasy about using tragedy as a means of gaining attention, but this post really highlights exactly why such a ploy is wrong. The only good thing I can say about the song is that most people I know take the song about as seriously as the song takes the subject matter of death.
I’m so glad you know about Vienna Teng. There are not enough artists like her. “Passage” is such a haunting song, so perfect in its tragedy.
The Band Perry can suck it. Their song is so stupid.
Very well said, Ms Ellis.
The me-centric nature of youth culture – especially on the internet – is something distasteful on an extreme level.
Where I live, a Chinese student was murdered by two very unstable boys a year ago. The press coverage was extensive, not least of all because many news outlets decided to frame it as an issue on race. (Australia, while laid back, is a pretty racist nation)
All across my campus, as well as Facebook and a few other notions, were people either a) explaining how this girl-they-hadn’t-met’s death was a personal tragedy to them, or b) saying that this death wasn’t that big a deal because they didn’t know her at all, and why was it such a big deal for the media?
It was (dishearteningly) rare for people to simply say that it was a sad case of events and express sympathy without framing it through their experience.
I suppose there’s an amount of irony in that I just had to give my experience of that though…
I always wondered if she expected this all to happen within the first six hours following her death. Ya know, before livor mortis sets in and she gets all gross and purple! Icky!
This is a very good summary of what is wrong with that fucking song. I just wish that you didn’t know what you’re talking about THAT well in this case…
On second thought, I apologize for that comment. The condescension was not intended. The prevalent thought at the moment came before better judgment.
A few months ago, after reading several accounts of people who have died from abscessed teeth, I decided to have a conversation with my husband about what he should do in the admittedly off-chance that I died before I got treatment for mine.
Oddly satin, roses, and pearls were not part of the conversation. By oddly I mean OF COURSE THEY WEREN’T. This song was written by a person who not only has not known anyone who died young, but who has not once faced the idea that they may actually die young, may leave behind a pile of bills and force someone to pay to take care of their body.
If you were curious about the thought process behind the lyrics, I found that: http://www.theboot.com/2010/07/16/the-band-perry-if-i-die-young-lyrics/
As a person who is nearing the half-century mark of my life, my own observation is that romanticizing death is an indulgence unique to healthy and inexperienced youth. These young adults or teenagers see death as romantic gestures (ie Romeo&Juliet) or a way to send a message to the world for attention. Those of us who are a bit older and closer, statistically, to mortality don’t see death as anything we want to hasten! We’ve also lived long enough to attend more than a few funerals and to have seen the impact of losing a loved one at a young age such as families torn apart from grief and young children left without a parent. I have to say though that I dislike BOTH songs. Hate the “I Die Young” and hate the “Passage” song similarly. Both are manipulative and ignore the people left behind and their pain. News flash to people out there — when you die in a car crash, you can’t sing about it to anyone. Want to hear truth about someone dying young? Listen to Eric Claptons “Tears In Heaven” written after losing his 4 year old child.
I’m so glad that both you and Todd addressed this. This song isn’t about the pain of a life cut short, but attention-whoring at its worst level, and for anyone who’s lost friends, family members or classmates/co-workers this song is completely apalling.
I couldn’t agree more. My cousin Robin committed suicide earlier this year, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t leave behind a beautiful body. I don’t know how she did it exactly, my Aunt Wendy refused to tell us, which means it must’ve been really bad. She was cremated before the memorial service.
She had a lifetime membership in the NRA though, so sadly I can kinda guess.
Point is, this song may sound pretty if you don’t pay attention but once you look into the lyrics…
I completely agree and appreciate this post, Lindsay! Although I’ve mostly been watching Todd’s review over and over again today because its really funny, there is a more disgusting feeling I get on my own from listening to such a song.
Its ashame because it does have a really pretty melody and voice (in my opinion), but the concept just really bothers me. A young death is never something to be glorified or sound sweet or pretty, which is all that song’s about. No one can intelligently say that it means anything more.
I’m glad you took a more serious approach to explaining what’s wrong with it here. I’m sorry for all your losses in the past.
Its also cool to hear how close you and Todd are in helping eachother write reviews. I never realized how much that happened until recently. Keep up your great work!~
P.S. I knew that the “you understand my pain” gag was a reference, but didn’t know you directly gave it to him. Nice~
Age old question answered.
Will the circle be unbroken? Nope, cause she’s a selfish brat.
The whole logic is faulty. Your family will mourn, your friends will mourn, but most of them get on. You know how you know this is true? Because you did abd by the age of fourteen you probably had to deal with death and you got by it didn’t you? People who are found posthumously profound tended to have something to say, “I’ll jump.” doesn’t cut it. You’ve got more to offer than that, so keep on and find something worth living for.
I agree wholeheartedly. Most of my personal experience with death has involved the elderly, and I will spare you the gruesome details that were made no more pleasant by knowing it was coming ahead of time, but I recall one story from my high school days. One day in my excitingly titled Data Processing class, as we were data processing away, our teacher came into class and told us that one of our classmates had committed suicide and that, if I recall correctly, counselling services were available, should we happen to have been friends with him. A picture of the deceased was passed around. I didn’t really know him, but I recognized his face as… y’know… just another classmate. A Pakistani fellow, as there were, for some reason, a surprisingly large number of them in our otherwise white-bread town. Judging by the reactions of my class, no one really knew him except for the other Pakistani students. I guess it makes sense, since they mostly kept to themselves because it’s a white-bread town and such places are not always welcoming to difference.
Shortly thereafter, a story behind his suicide surfaced. I cannot verify the truth of it, but the story goes that he had a girlfriend who wound up being arranged to marry someone else. When it became clear that this situation could not be rectified, she hung herself in a barn or some such, then shortly thereafter, my classmate also killed himself in some unspecified way. There was also a variant of the story where they did the act together, or one incited the other to do it.
Can’t really say if the story is true, or which subtle variation of it is, or if it’s just a product of my cesspool of a hometown’s pervasive racism. Nonetheless, an ugly shadow hung over the school for a few days, as that grim specter of death loomed over us all, then it was forgotten and life went on. No one knew the poor kid (or kids, assuming the story I heard was true), so once the fact that he killed himself had worked its way through everyone’s imagination, there really wasn’t anything left to dwell upon.
Ugh, that song makes me queasy. Even in the story I’ve just mentioned, it really didn’t seem… pretty… or… romantic… or any of that sentimental crap. Even with the mangled corpses kept wisely out of the public eye, it was all so ugly and wasteful and awful. If the story was true, it was the product of emotional teenagers and an unfeeling devotion to tradition on the part of the involved parents. If it was false, it was the product of my culture’s stereotyped view of another culture. I guess I should have asked someone a little closer to the kid, but I was a stupid teenager then, and now I can’t even remember his name…
When I was in the 8th grade there was a boy who was a freshman in high school. My teacher said he was a nice kid, he got good grades, and when he was in the 8th grade sat in the second desk in the fifth row in my class. My teacher said he killed himself that weekend. He hung himself and his mom found him and a note that said “its no one’s fault”. Thank you Ms. Lindsay. There is nothing glamorous about a young death, I don’t know why Band Perry thinks there is. It makes me feel ashamed for my attempts to kill myself.
My interp of the song since it first came out summer 2010 was that with her talking about the boy who loves her, she was saying that everything’s so good in her life that if she died today, she would be able to die happy. I dunno, that was my take on it. I don’t hate the song but I am kinda jaded by the overplay.
Oh & btw, Lindsay, if you wanna hear a country song that deals with the topic of pondering death & handles it WELL, I’d recommend Brad Paisley’s “When I Get Where I’m Going”
Last year I had to go to a thing the AAA and the local cops did on drunk driving. It started, as these things do, with Simple Plan’s “Untitled.”
“Untitled,” as anyone with ears knows, is the only song in the history of music that could possibly rival “Crawling” for cheap emo angst points. Bonus points especially for being crazy unsubtle and bludgeoning you upside the head with the “drunk driving is bad, mmmkay?” message every chance it gets. But—and this is pretty much the only thing the song does well—it at least handles the whole dying young thing with the proper gravity. It sucks, the song tells us. It sucks for your family. It sucks for your friends. It sucks for the doctors, the cops, all the authority figures in your life; it sucks for everyone you’ve ever met ever.
The Band Perry doesn’t even do that. They’re saying, “No, no, dying young is romantic, and you’ll leave a pretty corpse behind and everything and they’ll even listen to all the things you had to say…” *sigh* That song is beyond shallow, or selfish. It is offensive.
The first time I heard this song was just after the series of teen suicides. It felt completely inappropriate for the time because I felt like it glorified suicide, like in New Moon.
My personal experience with “young death” was the suicide of one of my classmates my freshman year of college. I didn’t even know him, but all of a sudden, I’d notice his empty seat in class. He left behind a family and a lot of sad friends.
Thanks for your own takes and sorry for your loss.
I couldnt agree with your treatise more…though on an unrelated note; I remember when JB died too…It was senseless. I had only met him once or twice when he came down to DC to visit a mutual friend, but from what I remember of him, he was a really sweet and upright guy. Reading your blog for added depth to the video was a suprise. Thanks for sharing your insights.
I few years ago a co-worker of mine got killed when somebody jumped him. The last time I saw him alive it was literally just another day at work. Then the next day I was told that he was dead. I bunch of people from my job went to his wake. He looked so much different just so shortly after he died. It’s hard to forget something like that.
Having survived being young, I enetered my mid-life in a downward direction. It was the obvious “I’m in my 40′s and have not become an important artist yet” self pity trip. This caused me to want to die on several occasions. Luckily, I realized that there’s a difference between wanting to kill yourself and just plain being tired of living an un-fulfilling life. Try replacing the fantasy of “they’ll all be sorry when I’m gone” with visions of your family suffering because of your death. Yes, everyone loves to fantasize about their friends meeting in a bar to toast your memory, but try visualizing your poor mother having a nervous breakdown. Try thinking abut how it will take years off your parent’s lives as they wonder what they did to fail you. Thoughts like this are far more powerful than the touchy feely “every life is precious” bullshit and all of the going to hell-scare tactics that religion uses to control your life.
As an older creative person who still lives a 20-something lifestyle, I would say that accomplishing as much as possible with the time you’ve got is the best defense against wanting to die young
This is going to sound very silly, but I prefer “If I Die Young”. I mean, I’d rather listen to it on the radio than the other one you shared. I hated that “funny when you’re dead how people start listenin’ ” line, but the melody is much more nicer. I couldn’t listen more than 20 seconds of “Passage”. But then again, I’m not a native speaker and I’m very musical (?) so I tend to not pay attention to the lyrics.
Nevertheless, I loved Todd’s review (I also adore your reviews!).
Greetings from Argentina.
According to the Band Perry, this song is about making the most of your life. If this song is truely about that, they have failed as songwriters and it makes the song that much worse in my opinion. I also feel alone in my circle of friends as one of the few people who genuinely hate this song.
With regards to songs about having a short life, there are much better ones out there, hell, Meat Loaf’s Heaven Can Wait is a better song about the subject matter and it was released 27 years ago!
With regards to a comment above mine by jercox, the first day I was in High School, I was talking with a friend of mine in my first class as to how I was looking forward to having a specific History teacher the next year, during the announcements that day, it was announced that he had died the day before school started and it was apparently suicide. My school had a memorial book for him where students and faculty could write something about him that they remembered and to offer their condolences to his family. Even though I had never met him, I knew of him and it shocked me since he was pretty energetic as my brother’s history teacher.
Band Perry, do your research before you write a song like this, those who have had to go through this tragedy and actually show your respect to the subject matter.
A really great post.
Sorry for the tl;dr that will follow:
You briefly addressed the romanticizing of tuberculosis in the 19th century. Back then and still today romanticizing death and corpses is a phenomenon universal in Western culture and while I can’t speak about all of them, it is one of the strongest in my own culture (Austria). Here, in Vienna this morbid culture of romanticizing and elevating the “schöne leich” (pretty corpse) to something of an almost sacral status is the outcome of a cultural movement called “Biedermeier”.
Basically it’s a whole set of morals and values influenced by the political backlash following the effective end of the French Revolution through the defeat of Napoleon. The very young Bourgeois class retreated from a fighting stance against the more or less absolute Monarchy in a culture that praised the retreat to the private. The lack of political power or in case of today’s teenagers the notion to be understood produces a search for other instruments of power. One of these instruments is death.
I know this is not very new or maybe exciting to some people but I just wanted to point out that the fantasizing about death has an origin and a place in a political context, even today.
On a somewhat less morbid note, this reminds me of one of my favorite comebacks of all time (not that I have made all that many witty comebacks).
Back in college in the self-absorbed 80′s one of my peers advocated the idea of ‘live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse’. I responded with a better idea – ‘live fully, die old, and leave lots of money’. OK maybe I could have found a better third item, but I still think it works well for an off the cuff quip.
I LOVE Vienna Teng’s work! I’ve seen her live twice and it was worth it both times. I’m glad other people know about her.
My apologies. In my excitement over seeing someone mention Vienna Teng I jumped ahead of myself without reading the rest of your post. Now I look like an ass.
But really thank you for writing this. I too have had someone I know die young (a dear cousin who I really miss) and there is really no silver lining to it. Life just goes on but there’s always that faint ache that rises whenever you think about them.
I will admit that I kind of like “If I die young” provided I turn off my brain and don’t actually listen to it. Not much of an endorsement is it? I love the melodies and how she sings and a few of the lyrics are nice. But the majority of the lyrics are just…awkward at best. If redone to focus on her friends and family or maybe how if she knew the end was coming she could pass with peace it could have been so much better, but as it stands it’s just a self-centered mess.
“If I Die Young” is a piece of trash on multiple levels. Not only, from a purely artistic level, is it shitty bubblegum country, with sub-Taylor Swift lyrics and musicianship, it also glamorizes death in a way that makes young people, (mostly girls) too young to realize it’s insipid and pretentious posturing is nothing more than a gimmick. It takes a subject that most of its listening audience has no perspective or opinion on and makes it palatable. Fuck, it makes it downright fun. Dyeing, according to this Taylor Swift knock-off cunt, isn’t a bad thing. No. It’s something to be looked forward to. “If I Die Young” is a terrible fucking song with a terrible fucking message. Fuck The Band Perry and fuck this irresponsible and reprehensible piece of music.
(Sorry if I came across as a little bitter there…)
As for a good song about dieing young, that handles things with more gravity and intelligence; http://m.youtube.com/indexdesktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=3XtZUWeADM0
When you said “…and sing me a love song…” and you played “I’ll make love to you” I spewed my Mt Dew laughing! ROFLMAO!
Today, after five weeks of searching they found the body of a friend of mine in the Dublin docks. They had to use dental records to identify him. He was nineteen. I keep thinking of his poor family, they’re not going to be able have the traditional wake or see their son, their brother for the last time like if he had left a perfect corpse.
It just made me think of this stupid song.