10 Years, 100 Songs: #9 Fat Lip
Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:29 pm
10 Years, 100 Songs: #9. “Doctor Said My Mom Should Have Had an Abortion…â€Â
Over the final months of our fine decade, Intensities in Ten Suburbs will be sending the Naughty Oughties out in style with a series of essays devoted to the top 100 songs of the decade–the ones we will most remember as we look back fondly on this period of pop music years down the road. The archives can be found here. If you want to argue about the order, you can’t, because we’re not totally sure what the qualifications are either. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy.
I’m not sure what exactly punk rock was supposed to look like in the Naughty Oughties, but most authoritative sources seemed to agree on one key concept: It should have had absolutely nothing to do with malls. Nothing in this world, it appears, is as truly un-punk as a conglomerate of department stores, food courts and electronics chains you thought folded 15 years ago. Consequently, any music made by young people that sounded like its creators might own more than one article of clothing or piece of general paraphernalia from Hot Topic was thus branded as “Mall Punk,†the sole province of little girls and the socially retarded. Much of the most popular pop-punk of the decade was at one time or another branded with this appellation, a tag that few would escape from under to reach any kind of artistic credibility. Many of them–New Found Glory, SR-71, Simple Plan–might not have necessarily deserved to. But one that actually did was Sum 41.
“Fat Lip†is the best punk song of the last 25 years, the greatest anthem of disenfranchised youth since Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized,†if not even longer. Of the list of classic punk bands who have written a song better than “Fat Lip,†I’d probably put The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash in there…and that’s about it. Green Day and Blink-182 wrote the most great pop-punk songs of any bands from the post-grunge era, but neither of them ever quite wrote a song as simple, effective and purposeful as “Fat Lip.†It may or may not have registered as a true cry for social revolt by Class of ‘77 standards–it’s not so much about true anarchy as it is about shoplifting Doritos from the local 7/11–but as far as songs about being young, bratty and slightly left-of-center in the societal spectrum go (and let’s be honest, that’s what punk rock had become in the 00s, for better or worse), it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a purer statement of intent than “Fat Lip.â€Â
All you really needed was a glimpse of lead singer Deryck Whibley to get a pretty solid idea of Sum 41’s M.O. Skinny, gelled up blonde hair, wristbands, baggy pants, perpetual sneer…he was like pop-punk’s most game-entrenched foot solider, the Bodie Broadus of white suburban America (or in this case, Ajax, Ontario–for some reason, nobody seems to understand trashy American culture better than those Canadians). Whibley was already 21 when “Fat Lip†came out, but he still looked like your 14-year-old younger brother, and his band seemed like they should be playing at your high school talent show. Growing up on the Main Line, I felt like I knew about a couple dozen kids that seemed like they very easily could have been moonlighting as the Sum 41 bassist. It’s weird to talk about authenticity when discussing a band like Sum 41, but unlike the Good Charlottes and Simple Plans of the world–who seemed punk more out of convenience than anything else–there was little doubt that when it came to being true teenage pissants, Sum 41 walked it like they talked it.
And they owned it, too. No one sounded so proud and thrilled to be young and disobedient as Sum 41, especially now that they were getting to play songs about it in front of thousands of fans. The “Fat Lip†video is a four-minute celebration of social weirdness and rebellion, in forms relatively cliched (a girl shaving her head, an old guy dancing, some dude acting flippant to the cops) but triumphant nonetheless. And to their credit, it’s not just the punk sub-culture that Sum 41 embraced in “Fat Lipâ€Â–rather, they called on all three of the most authority-alienating forms of music of the last 30 years (hip-hop, punk and metal) to power their insubordination, rapping and beatboxing to an unimpressed convenience store owner in the video intro, playing to a mosh pit of skating and general stupidity in the video’s crux, and then paying tribute to their fret-shredding heroes (also name-checked in the song proper) in the “Pain for Pleasure†outro. (For some reason, the “Pain for Pleasure†bit isn’t included in any of the “Fat Lip†videos on YouTube or DailyMotion, but it’s fantastic and can be viewed separately here.)
And oh yeah, the song. “â€ÂThe verses are really about what we do: growing up in the suburbs, going to parties and hanging out with our friends, and causing trouble,†said Whibley about it once. “A lot of people say they relate to it.†Yeah, you think? You’re not going to find a better opening couplet to sum up teenage insolence, arrogance and invincibility better than “Stormin’ through the party like my name was El Nino / (While I’m hangin’ out drinkin’ in the back of an El Camino!)†Or a more accepting and gleeful affirmation of outsider status than “As a kid, was a skid, no one knew me by name / Trashed my own house party ‘coz nobody came.†Or a simpler Fuck You I Won’t Do What You Tell Me statement than “Attention that we crave, don’t tell us to behave / I’m sick of always hearin’ act your age.â€Â) And guess what? That’s all before the first chorus. There’s plenty more where those came from, including the chorus itself: “I don’t wanna waste my time / Become another casualty of society / And I will never fall in line / Become another victim of your conformity.†How the hell can you top that? If you’re not going to give Sum 41 punk credentials for any other part of “Fat Lip,†c’mon, you gotta at least give it up for that chorus.
But for a song about so basic a punk concept, the song was actually significantly more complex musically than just two minutes and three chords. I mean, that was in there too, on the verses and chorus, but they were juxtaposed with rap sections where band members traded off lines and syllables like the Beastie Boys, guitar-crunch breakdowns, and a pop-parody bridge, the whole thing coming together an overstuffed but surprisingly coherent mess of confrontational attitude. Like with the video, it’s that middle ground found between hip-hop, punk and metal where all slightly ticked-off young’ns can unite in their desire to run slightly against the grain that makes the song such a powerful anthem. Well, that and the fact that they found a great fucking riff to go with it–you hear those first chugging notes of that “Fat Lip†intro, and if you’re not prepared to start moshing (well…jumping up and down unobtrusively, at least) by the time the whole band kicks in, then congratulations on being over the age of 30 or having a nice haircut or something.
Sum 41 had a handful of nice-enough songs that followed “Fat Lipâ€Â–â€ÂIn Too Deep,†“The Hell Song,†and my personal favorite (and one of the great commercial suicide singles of the 00s), “We’re All to Blame,†all among them–but they weren’t quite talented enough to mature musically the way Blink or Green Day did, never really built on their early success, and going into the 2010s, already feel more than a little bit like Naughty Oughties relics. This was their one shot at achieving pop immortality, and boy did they ever nail it. Even twenty years from now, when All Those Mall Punk Bands With a Bunch of Numbers in Their Names have completely blended together in the history books, “Fat Lip†will rise above as the shining example of how as long as there are suburban kids somewhere out there who take umbrage at having their math homework double-checked, great music will emerge, and punk rock will kind of sort of never die.
Over the final months of our fine decade, Intensities in Ten Suburbs will be sending the Naughty Oughties out in style with a series of essays devoted to the top 100 songs of the decade–the ones we will most remember as we look back fondly on this period of pop music years down the road. The archives can be found here. If you want to argue about the order, you can’t, because we’re not totally sure what the qualifications are either. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy.
I’m not sure what exactly punk rock was supposed to look like in the Naughty Oughties, but most authoritative sources seemed to agree on one key concept: It should have had absolutely nothing to do with malls. Nothing in this world, it appears, is as truly un-punk as a conglomerate of department stores, food courts and electronics chains you thought folded 15 years ago. Consequently, any music made by young people that sounded like its creators might own more than one article of clothing or piece of general paraphernalia from Hot Topic was thus branded as “Mall Punk,†the sole province of little girls and the socially retarded. Much of the most popular pop-punk of the decade was at one time or another branded with this appellation, a tag that few would escape from under to reach any kind of artistic credibility. Many of them–New Found Glory, SR-71, Simple Plan–might not have necessarily deserved to. But one that actually did was Sum 41.
“Fat Lip†is the best punk song of the last 25 years, the greatest anthem of disenfranchised youth since Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized,†if not even longer. Of the list of classic punk bands who have written a song better than “Fat Lip,†I’d probably put The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash in there…and that’s about it. Green Day and Blink-182 wrote the most great pop-punk songs of any bands from the post-grunge era, but neither of them ever quite wrote a song as simple, effective and purposeful as “Fat Lip.†It may or may not have registered as a true cry for social revolt by Class of ‘77 standards–it’s not so much about true anarchy as it is about shoplifting Doritos from the local 7/11–but as far as songs about being young, bratty and slightly left-of-center in the societal spectrum go (and let’s be honest, that’s what punk rock had become in the 00s, for better or worse), it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a purer statement of intent than “Fat Lip.â€Â
All you really needed was a glimpse of lead singer Deryck Whibley to get a pretty solid idea of Sum 41’s M.O. Skinny, gelled up blonde hair, wristbands, baggy pants, perpetual sneer…he was like pop-punk’s most game-entrenched foot solider, the Bodie Broadus of white suburban America (or in this case, Ajax, Ontario–for some reason, nobody seems to understand trashy American culture better than those Canadians). Whibley was already 21 when “Fat Lip†came out, but he still looked like your 14-year-old younger brother, and his band seemed like they should be playing at your high school talent show. Growing up on the Main Line, I felt like I knew about a couple dozen kids that seemed like they very easily could have been moonlighting as the Sum 41 bassist. It’s weird to talk about authenticity when discussing a band like Sum 41, but unlike the Good Charlottes and Simple Plans of the world–who seemed punk more out of convenience than anything else–there was little doubt that when it came to being true teenage pissants, Sum 41 walked it like they talked it.
And they owned it, too. No one sounded so proud and thrilled to be young and disobedient as Sum 41, especially now that they were getting to play songs about it in front of thousands of fans. The “Fat Lip†video is a four-minute celebration of social weirdness and rebellion, in forms relatively cliched (a girl shaving her head, an old guy dancing, some dude acting flippant to the cops) but triumphant nonetheless. And to their credit, it’s not just the punk sub-culture that Sum 41 embraced in “Fat Lipâ€Â–rather, they called on all three of the most authority-alienating forms of music of the last 30 years (hip-hop, punk and metal) to power their insubordination, rapping and beatboxing to an unimpressed convenience store owner in the video intro, playing to a mosh pit of skating and general stupidity in the video’s crux, and then paying tribute to their fret-shredding heroes (also name-checked in the song proper) in the “Pain for Pleasure†outro. (For some reason, the “Pain for Pleasure†bit isn’t included in any of the “Fat Lip†videos on YouTube or DailyMotion, but it’s fantastic and can be viewed separately here.)
And oh yeah, the song. “â€ÂThe verses are really about what we do: growing up in the suburbs, going to parties and hanging out with our friends, and causing trouble,†said Whibley about it once. “A lot of people say they relate to it.†Yeah, you think? You’re not going to find a better opening couplet to sum up teenage insolence, arrogance and invincibility better than “Stormin’ through the party like my name was El Nino / (While I’m hangin’ out drinkin’ in the back of an El Camino!)†Or a more accepting and gleeful affirmation of outsider status than “As a kid, was a skid, no one knew me by name / Trashed my own house party ‘coz nobody came.†Or a simpler Fuck You I Won’t Do What You Tell Me statement than “Attention that we crave, don’t tell us to behave / I’m sick of always hearin’ act your age.â€Â) And guess what? That’s all before the first chorus. There’s plenty more where those came from, including the chorus itself: “I don’t wanna waste my time / Become another casualty of society / And I will never fall in line / Become another victim of your conformity.†How the hell can you top that? If you’re not going to give Sum 41 punk credentials for any other part of “Fat Lip,†c’mon, you gotta at least give it up for that chorus.
But for a song about so basic a punk concept, the song was actually significantly more complex musically than just two minutes and three chords. I mean, that was in there too, on the verses and chorus, but they were juxtaposed with rap sections where band members traded off lines and syllables like the Beastie Boys, guitar-crunch breakdowns, and a pop-parody bridge, the whole thing coming together an overstuffed but surprisingly coherent mess of confrontational attitude. Like with the video, it’s that middle ground found between hip-hop, punk and metal where all slightly ticked-off young’ns can unite in their desire to run slightly against the grain that makes the song such a powerful anthem. Well, that and the fact that they found a great fucking riff to go with it–you hear those first chugging notes of that “Fat Lip†intro, and if you’re not prepared to start moshing (well…jumping up and down unobtrusively, at least) by the time the whole band kicks in, then congratulations on being over the age of 30 or having a nice haircut or something.
Sum 41 had a handful of nice-enough songs that followed “Fat Lipâ€Â–â€ÂIn Too Deep,†“The Hell Song,†and my personal favorite (and one of the great commercial suicide singles of the 00s), “We’re All to Blame,†all among them–but they weren’t quite talented enough to mature musically the way Blink or Green Day did, never really built on their early success, and going into the 2010s, already feel more than a little bit like Naughty Oughties relics. This was their one shot at achieving pop immortality, and boy did they ever nail it. Even twenty years from now, when All Those Mall Punk Bands With a Bunch of Numbers in Their Names have completely blended together in the history books, “Fat Lip†will rise above as the shining example of how as long as there are suburban kids somewhere out there who take umbrage at having their math homework double-checked, great music will emerge, and punk rock will kind of sort of never die.