Driver Education

Listen while you read:  Indigo Girls

I fell for guys who tried to commit suicide
With soft rock hair and bloodshot eyes
He tastes like Marlboro cigarettes, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
A Pepsi in his hand, getting off the school bus

Films and drills and safety illustrations
The crushed cars of driver education

Now it's tattooed girls with a past they can't remember
Who pledged allegiance to a life of bending the curriculum
She tastes like spring, there she goes again
Drinking with the older guys, tripping by the lakeside

Films and drills and safety illustrations
The crushed cars of driver education

When you were sweet sixteen, I was already mean
And feeling bad for giving it up to the man just to make the scene
Where were you, back when I had something to prove
With the switchblade set and the church kids learning my moves?

I ran for miles through the suburbs of the 70s
Pollen dust and Pixy Stix, kissing in the deep end
Of swimming pools before I knew what's in there
We come into this life waterlogged and tender

Films and drills and safety illustrations
The crushed cars of driver education . . .

~  Amy Ray (Indigo Girls)

I prefer Amy Ray's performance of this song which appeared on her solo album Prom in 2005. I could not find a video for that one, so the link above will take you to the same song on Indigo Girls' 2009 release Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. Amy Ray, of course, is one half of Indigo Girls, with the other half being Emily Saliers.

I am trying to psyche myself into crossing an errand off my to-do list. I need to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver's license. I also need to obtain the title for my Subaru, which I just paid off last month. The car title makes for a happy errand, but the license renewal? It requires a photo, right? Ugh. Anyway, I thought this peppy song might motivate me to get moving.

But I also love the song, not just for its pep, but also for the way Amy Ray captures some of the dysfunction of our teenage years. Tell me you can't picture (and smell) that tough ass guy emerging from the school bus? My guess is that he is still too young to drive his own car to school, but he is certainly asserting his coolness in other ways. And the girls are tough, too, always being tested by their participation in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Aside from having navigated the stressful teenage years myself, I also spent 30 years teaching teenagers. Despite my gratitude at having had such a rewarding career, I can also attest to the opinion that high school is not a very nurturing place. In fact, it often sucks.

Films and drills and safety illustrations / The crushed cars of driver education. I would suggest that this is metaphor for the whole enchilada. As youth, we are trained, we are warned, we are hit over the head with consequences . . . and the tool is fear. It's amazing that any of us survive.

We come into this life waterlogged and tender. Hands down, the best line in the song, and such a contrast to the song's imagery and emotion. It is the tenderness that suffers from our inevitable loss of innocence. I would like to believe that it still lives inside us, and that we must make an effort to let it emerge from the depths, waterlogged though it may be. Now would be a good time to do that.

But first, I'm off to the DMV.