The first time I heard “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals, I was licking a cherry lollipop on my way to school. Buckled up in the backseat of my mothers new Benz, I got my first taste of the unedited song. I studied the words carefully so I could act like it was no big deal for me to swear.
My mom wasn’t the mom that would get mad at you me for singing to loud even though it hurt her ears; she was the type that would turn it up so that I could sing even louder.
We picked up my best friend, Hannah, and she jumped into the car with her stupid yellow backpack strapped on tight, thinking she was all that and more. Which she totally was. All jokes aside, we had a very important day of fourth grade ahead of us. It was finally the year that we had the best field trip to look forward to, the one that everyone looked forward to as if it were the Super Bowl. The trip to the Butterfly Place.
I made my mother promise that she would replay the song over and over until we arrived at school. By the time we reached the parking lot, I had most the song memorized like the back of my hand. My friend decided to only memorize the parts with the swears, as if it were amusing to hear her high-pitched voice belt out a line or two. We opened the door and slid out onto the black tar covered in chalk. I hopscotched my way to the brick stairs leading to our school door, noting the crucifix above the doorbell. I remember wondering if God heard me swearing and singing a “grown up song.” I had hoped he’d forgive me because it was too addicting to stop. My friend and I kept repeating our favorite phrases as we walked to our classrooms, clacking our clogs on the squeaky clean floors in harmony to the song.
I threw my mom a quick wink, and she gave me a mischievous smile back.
As all the fourth graders formed a line at the front of the classroom, I ran over to my teacher. I explained to her with maturity and poise that I simply could not ride in the bus because I would get “so so sick,” which was total bullshit. I don’t even get sick reading in the backseat of a car going 90 MPH on the highway. I even convinced my teacher that my friend had to ride along with me; I don’t know what made my argument so convincing.
Both of us climbed into the backseat of my mother's Mercedes and waited for the song to play throughout the speakers. We had this notion in our heads that if we sang the song to our classmates, they would think we were so grown up. We clicked in our seatbelts, smoothed our plaid skirts, and rolled down the windows. We daintily crossed our legs like the little Christian girls we were and pretended our lollipops were cigarettes. Watching my mother turn up the volume, we glanced over at the yellow bus filled with our fourth grade peers. Us girls in the back seat started screaming and yelling all of the words to the four minute and thirty-three second song. My mother wiped the tears falling from laughing so hard at us, and the kids on the bus pointed and laugh. We were so naive that we actually believed that they were laughing with us, not at us. Everyone seemed so pleased, minus the nuns on the back. Sister Martha’s lips curved down as if they were pointing to Hell. I took her frown as a message to stop.
We finally reached the dream field trip location around eleven o’clock. The bus checked in first, leaving just enough time for us to bust out our favorite and most risky line. Windows down, heads out the window, and prepared to accept a most necessary detention, we shouted:
“Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson
Courtney Love, and Marilyn Manson,
You’re all fakes
Run to your mansions
Come around
We’ll kick your ass in!”
