“I’m so embarrassed I could just die!” is a common exclamation from teenage movie stars, from Haley Mills in The Parent Trap to Selena Gomez in Ramona and Beezus, and it’s a common feeling amongst tweens. I know from my personal experience and from the experience of my friends. The problem is that this feeling of overwhelming dread is often tsked or simply overlooked by adults, or worse, they mumble something about the whole experience making you stronger because it didn’t kill you. Great, you think. Here’s the thing though, and this is why I love the song If I Die Young by the band Perry, tweens and teens have so much insight and interesting opinions that it really wouldn’t hurt to listen more to what they actually have to say.
There are certain lines that I think speak to what it might be like being a tween today. I’ve had just enough time . . .A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell them for a dollar, They’re worth so much more after I’m a gonner, And maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singin’, Funny when you’re dead how people start listenin’
The lyrics convey that the singer is aware of her consciousness about the world, but that those around her dismiss her until she dies, or is gone.
I also enjoy the reference to Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot” which conjures up the memory of another tween who was considered overdramatic, Anne from Anne of Green Gables.
Kimberly Perry, the singer of The Band Perry and the writer of If I Die Young is actually 26, but I think the words she has chosen conjures up the experience of someone younger. I think it’s nice for there to be a song out there getting plenty of radio time on country music stations that tweens might be able to relate and does not involved being boy obsessed (not that there’s anything wrong with being boy obsessed, but some variety is always a good thing).
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