Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl

Published Tuesday, November 01, 2005 by Abby | E-mail this post

“Used to be one of the rotten ones/ And I liked you for that/ Now you’re all gone/ Got your make-up on/ And you’re not coming back.”

Sixteen was hard. Eighteen was better. But seventeen, oh seventeen. The year of finding my utopia and sinking as low as I hope I’ll ever know. Discovering the steel it turns out I’m made of; the everyday failings in everyone else.

Scribbled short stories. Citrus sweets for exam hours. The Northern Lights trilogy in two summer days. That strapless, striped cotton dress. California. Darkrooms and bright sun. Carpeted hallways and layered bodies. My first red lipstick. Skipping economics class to take the train to the city and sit with friends, bagels and Elle magazine aspirations. Crushes on boys that never went anywhere, because they were seventeen too. Abandonment and unimaginable loneliness. A world filled with other people’s words, but no conversation. Mugs of tea in the afternoons. Feeling on the verge of tears, all day, every day. Silence. Sick, hot bouts of weeping. Unexpressed anger at men who will never knew.

Soft and slow, this song says it all. Change, loss and quiet promises; I can feel the naïve energy and simple insistence in every hushed melody.

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