Hope it Gives You Heaven

It's not a very nice song, but I love to listen to the All-American Rejects's "Gives You Hell" when I'm driving my minivan. Normally, I'm a Britney Spears or Madonna kind of girl (both my co-workers and my family are appalled by my taste in music, by the way), but I make an exception for this particular song. In case you haven't heard it, "Gives You H-E-Double Hockey Sticks" is pretty much a repetition of the title lyric over and over again, with lead vocalist Tyson Ritter railing against an ex-girlfriend he doesn't much care for. The song suggests that Ritter is particularly disgusted with said ex-girlfriend for embracing responsibility, with all the stable employment, picket fences and shiny cars it entails:

"I wake up every evenin'
With a big smile on my face, and it never feels out of place.
You're still probably workin', at a 9 to 5 pace. I wonder how bad that tastes."

It's a song that I'm sure Ritter never, ever intended to be sung in a minivan, that perfect symbol of dorky suburbia I have so come to embrace. I particularly love to blare the song when I'm wearing a sweatsuit, driving my minivan, and headed to Wal-Mart to haggle with the cashiers about coupon matching and price adjustments. It's a guilty pleasure I enjoy when I do my late-night shopping, free from children who might inconveniently start singing "Gives You Hell" at, say, church or preschool.
Truth be told, I don't have a picket fence or a shiny car (mine is streaked with dirt and kid fingerprints). But part of me likes to envision the horror Ritter would feel if he pulled up next to me at a stoplight and saw me singing -- and dancing -- along to his rant against Middle America. It might, as they say, give him hell.
-- Elyssa Andrus
Published in the Daily Herald April 1, 2009.