"You Get What You Give" by New Radicals is the song for today. This is one of my favorite songs. It's probably in the top 5 list of my favorite songs of all time. While "Mother We Just Can't Get Enough" is my favorite New Radicals song, "You Get What You Give" tops it on the favorite songs ever list. I'm strange...
This song received HUGE amounts of airtime on American radio in it's release year of 1998, but it only made it to #36 on Billboard. On VH1's Top 100 Song of the 90s it only made #90 (further proving my ever-repeated point that this list is one of the most flawed I've ever seen and it makes me sick.) It was recently performed on the hit TV series "Glee." You might have heard of it. I hear it's big with the kids.
New Radicals was a strange band. Not in content or performance as much as the way things played out for them. Using the word "them" is also a stretch because New Radicals had something of a revolving door policy. Lead singer and songwriter Gregg Alexander was the only constant in the band's short history. All other "members" circulated in and out through recording sessions and tours. Alexander wrote all the music and lyrics so the other band members were essentially hired help. On their first and only album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, session musicians sat in on all the recording with Alexander instead of the band members that he originally chose.
"You Get What You Give" was an international hit, kind of to the chagrin of Alexander. With any act that has a breakout hit, the traveling and fame came quickly and Alexander was not about that life. Not at all. The group played live radio shows, fairs, festivals and opened for the Goo Goo Dolls for little while. Did the late night talk show circuit and a NYE show on TV. Right before a European tour, in the period of time where Alexander started wearing a ridiculous Gilligan hat while performing to hide his lack of enthusiasm, he announced that New Radicals would no longer be performing, recording or making music of any kind. He was over the short period of fame he'd experienced. Over it. And the band's short run was over just like that. Right before the break up, they'd shot the video for their second single "Someday We'll Know," but the single never got released, leaving the band in a technical "one hit wonder" place. As much as that makes me cringe. A few years later, Alexander won a Grammy for writing Santana and Michelle Branch's "Game of Love" and "Someday We'll Know" was covered by Mandy Moore and the guy from Switchfoot for the film version of "A Walk to Remember."
Why do I like "You Get What You Give" so much? Isn't it just a feel good 90s radio hit? This song means a lot more to me. FYI, I was 11 when this song came out. In 6th grade I think? Whatever, the point is I was a kid. And I was already starting to figure out that life is kinda shitty for a lot of people for no good reason. A good friend of mine died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver in her family's car 2 years previous to this when I was in 4th grade. That's the first time I've ever experienced death. And unfortunately the feeling of friends dying has been way way too present in my life since then. This song kinda helped me make some command life decisions at the tender age of 11. Life is short and can be shitty when left to let others hold the control. Or even when we hold control of it too tightly. I remember sitting in first period history or social studies class in 6th grade one day after having heard this song on Channel 1 in the morning (and on the radio at home before catching the bus.) I remember sitting there listening to it and distinctly thinking "This is what I need to live like if I get to grow up." Not when I grow up, but if I get to. I was keenly aware that my life wasn't a guarantee. So the lines wake up kids/we got the dreamer's disease meant more to me than Alexander probably thought. I wanted to live a life like that song, where you're flat broke but you do it in style and you've got close friends that you laugh til you cry with. I took don't give up/you've got a reason to live to heart, maybe a little too much for a 6th grader. I had to listen to that song to remind me that if/when I got older, I could make life an adventure. I was going to have a life worth remembering and telling stories about. One that if I looked back on, would feel like the youth, imagination, wonder, small rebellion and adventure of this song. And ya know, when you're in 6th grade, a song that says "we'll kick your ass in" makes you feel like the absolute coolest.
So this past week has been a reminder of my friends who've passed and it brings the events back up in a way that is hard to describe. But I heard this song randomly on my iPod in the car a couple days ago and it overwhelmed me, I almost had to pull over. It reminded me of those friends and it reminded me of a promise I made to 6th grade Sammi. Awkward, way too long of hair, chunky, has-a-crush-on-every -boy, Sammi. Your life is going to be an adventure. When you get to a cooler age (I guess 25 is cooler than 11,) you're going to live a life worth telling stories about. You're going to experience everything possible and do things no one thinks you can. Because it's not a guarantee. I think I lost a bit of that adventurous spirit lately and this was the reminder I needed.
