If I Picked the Offspring's Greatest Hits:
As far as I know, the Offspring's greatest hits album is scheduled to come out tomorrow, and of course, I am going to buy it. I've talked about them being my favorite band and writing songs that I could relate to, and in this blog post I'd like to get even more specific. I have picked my top 10 favorites from all of their songs; I probably could have chosen more, but these are the 10 that would be most relevant and interesting to the readers of The Protocol.
I ran into an old friend of mine recently - someone who knew me back when I was a teenager. He said he wondered where all this punk rock stuff was coming from because it seemed so out of character for me. It's true - it probably would seem out of character for a shy, polite straight-A student and All-State high school cellist to be a punk fan. But I intend to show you why liking punk rock is not out of character for a cynical intellectual and hardened competitor who fought her way back into a sport from which she was blackballed.
Here we go - it's The Protocol's version of the Offspring's Greatest Hits, from 1 to 10, in chronological order, along with the reasons why these songs have been so important to me.
(from Smash)
1. Genocide: It was the night I was packing to leave for the 1995 Junior Nationals. This was the Dirt Oval season, and I'd had a grand total of about 2 weeks on the ice, and no coach to go with me to the competition. I would be competing against girls who had been on ice regularly for months in Roseville and West Allis.
I had put Smash on, and was listening to it for the first time. Wow! This music was faster than anything I was used to. Track #4 was "Gotta Get Away" - a song I recognized from the radio. Then "Genocide" came on. There was one line in this song that got me hooked on the Offspring forever. It went:
"I bet you'd lead the way if it were up to you to decide,
But it's not."
(from Ixnay on the Hombre)
2. Leave It Behind: I remember reading that one music critic called this one "filler material," but for me it was the main event. Ixnay on the Hombre came out in 1997 - during the early years of my exile from speedskating. The song "Leave It Behind" was about not being able to forgive someone's betrayal. This song may or may not have been a jab at Epitaph Records boss Brett Gurewitz, who supposedly tried to sell off part of the company behind the backs of his highest-grossing band. (Sound familiar, USS/Qwest???) Unfortunately for me and my teammates - unlike the Offspring, who ended up leaving Epitaph and signing with Columbia, we can't exactly shop around for a new federation!
(from Americana)
This album came out as I was finishing college, and around the time the Olympic Bid scandal was raging.
3. Have You Ever:
"Have you ever felt like there was more,
Like someone else was keeping score
And what could make you whole was simply out of reach?"
This song also includes the part about the truth walking away, and "The truth about the world is that crime does pay."
4. The Kids Aren't Alright:
This one is about the 99.9% of people whose dreams don't come true.
5. No Brakes:
I love the speedy title, combined with the fact that the song is really about self-destruction!
6. Americana:
This song describes who is rewarded and what is desired in our society, and how twisted that can be. Even Boris, who once jokingly said that my favorite punkers "ought to be euthanized," gets a kick out of the line,
"Where culture's defined by the ones least refined."
(Looking back now, a year later, after the 2005-06 season, I can't believe I forgot to mention the following line, which pretty much sums up the reason why I no longer want to skate for this country, why I'm so glad to be rid of the idiots who run USSPEEDSKATING and my unreasonable fight against them:
"My future's determined by thieves, thugs, and vermin.")
(from Conspiracy of One)
This album came out in the fall of 2000, when I was finishing up my requirements for Ph.D. candidacy and trying to decide whether to come back to speedskating in time to try for the 2002 Olympics.
7. Come Out Swinging:
"Come out swinging
Come out alone
They're in your way
But as long as you're swinging
Strong then you'll get by."
This one seemed to say, you have got to go and do this NOW. It was also the song I listened to before my 3000 meters at the 2001 Fall World Cup Qualifier, when I made my first World Cup team.
(from the Orange County soundtrack)
8. Defy You:
My friend Ed, from City of Hope, emailed me the lyrics to this song when I was sucking it up on my first World Cup trip in November of 2001. I was checking my email at a laundromat in Innsbruck, Austria, when I got his email. He wrote, "You have to read this. I finally understand why you love the Offspring so much."
"Defy You" is the gold medal victory lap song that I will probably never live up to. If I don't win in Torino, (ha-ha-ha!!! Will I even be there?) then I hope some other skater picks it because it is the best victory lap song ever written. It makes me grateful to even compete in a sport where you can choose your own victory lap song:
"When the wind blows
I'll lean into the wind.
My anger grows
I'll use it to win."
I think that defiance, itself, has been the determining factor of the success of my comeback. You know that if I had been born to former Olympian parents, my federation loved me, and my hometown held bake sales for me, I would probably have locked myself in the basement with my microscope! That's just the way I am.
(from Splinter)
This album came out during the year of the Infamous Overtraining Experiment. One of my skating friends found that the songs on it hit so close to home that he had to hide Splinter under his bed for his own good!
9. Race Against Myself:
A race can be used as a metaphor for a lot of things in life, but for me, this song was word-for-word, 100% literal:
"Burning out, strung along
Now my sorrow is my song
My whole world is half-hearted.
For my pain I have none
After all is said and done
Now I'm back where I started."
This song called to mind 6 weeks of waking up with a heart rate of 68-72 beats per minute; of getting dropped on every single freakin' team bike ride; of skating a 4:54 in the 3K a week before the Fall World Cup trials; of actually watching my coach's dog for a few days while the rest of my team went off to race in Europe. And that was only the beginning.
10. Lightning Rod:
Back when I had my web site, this song was on it, and I had explained that if you call Jennifer Rodriguez "J-Rod," then you can call me "Lightning Rod..." because it's not about the speed - it's about being struck.
The last lines of this song describe the most likely ending to my own story - the time that is fast approaching - when I will pack it in and head back to the lab:
"All I am
My last stand
And I know
For all the rising and falling,
There's nothing to show."
So, there you have it - The Protocol's tribute to the Offspring. Maybe punk rock is not so evil after all!?! What is good and what is evil, anyway? The Offspring have had irate parents break their kids' CD's into bits and pieces, and mail them back to the band. But these might be the same parents who would "oooh and aaaah" over the purity of the Olympics and wouldn't hesitate to hand their kid a pair of speedskates, saying, "Here, kid. Try these."
But this most pure of Olympic sports almost destroyed my life, while that so-called "evil" punk band known as the Offspring helped to restore my will to live.
As far as I know, the Offspring's greatest hits album is scheduled to come out tomorrow, and of course, I am going to buy it. I've talked about them being my favorite band and writing songs that I could relate to, and in this blog post I'd like to get even more specific. I have picked my top 10 favorites from all of their songs; I probably could have chosen more, but these are the 10 that would be most relevant and interesting to the readers of The Protocol.
I ran into an old friend of mine recently - someone who knew me back when I was a teenager. He said he wondered where all this punk rock stuff was coming from because it seemed so out of character for me. It's true - it probably would seem out of character for a shy, polite straight-A student and All-State high school cellist to be a punk fan. But I intend to show you why liking punk rock is not out of character for a cynical intellectual and hardened competitor who fought her way back into a sport from which she was blackballed.
Here we go - it's The Protocol's version of the Offspring's Greatest Hits, from 1 to 10, in chronological order, along with the reasons why these songs have been so important to me.
(from Smash)
1. Genocide: It was the night I was packing to leave for the 1995 Junior Nationals. This was the Dirt Oval season, and I'd had a grand total of about 2 weeks on the ice, and no coach to go with me to the competition. I would be competing against girls who had been on ice regularly for months in Roseville and West Allis.
I had put Smash on, and was listening to it for the first time. Wow! This music was faster than anything I was used to. Track #4 was "Gotta Get Away" - a song I recognized from the radio. Then "Genocide" came on. There was one line in this song that got me hooked on the Offspring forever. It went:
"I bet you'd lead the way if it were up to you to decide,
But it's not."
(from Ixnay on the Hombre)
2. Leave It Behind: I remember reading that one music critic called this one "filler material," but for me it was the main event. Ixnay on the Hombre came out in 1997 - during the early years of my exile from speedskating. The song "Leave It Behind" was about not being able to forgive someone's betrayal. This song may or may not have been a jab at Epitaph Records boss Brett Gurewitz, who supposedly tried to sell off part of the company behind the backs of his highest-grossing band. (Sound familiar, USS/Qwest???) Unfortunately for me and my teammates - unlike the Offspring, who ended up leaving Epitaph and signing with Columbia, we can't exactly shop around for a new federation!
(from Americana)
This album came out as I was finishing college, and around the time the Olympic Bid scandal was raging.
3. Have You Ever:
"Have you ever felt like there was more,
Like someone else was keeping score
And what could make you whole was simply out of reach?"
This song also includes the part about the truth walking away, and "The truth about the world is that crime does pay."
4. The Kids Aren't Alright:
This one is about the 99.9% of people whose dreams don't come true.
5. No Brakes:
I love the speedy title, combined with the fact that the song is really about self-destruction!
6. Americana:
This song describes who is rewarded and what is desired in our society, and how twisted that can be. Even Boris, who once jokingly said that my favorite punkers "ought to be euthanized," gets a kick out of the line,
"Where culture's defined by the ones least refined."
(Looking back now, a year later, after the 2005-06 season, I can't believe I forgot to mention the following line, which pretty much sums up the reason why I no longer want to skate for this country, why I'm so glad to be rid of the idiots who run USSPEEDSKATING and my unreasonable fight against them:
"My future's determined by thieves, thugs, and vermin.")
(from Conspiracy of One)
This album came out in the fall of 2000, when I was finishing up my requirements for Ph.D. candidacy and trying to decide whether to come back to speedskating in time to try for the 2002 Olympics.
7. Come Out Swinging:
"Come out swinging
Come out alone
They're in your way
But as long as you're swinging
Strong then you'll get by."
This one seemed to say, you have got to go and do this NOW. It was also the song I listened to before my 3000 meters at the 2001 Fall World Cup Qualifier, when I made my first World Cup team.
(from the Orange County soundtrack)
8. Defy You:
My friend Ed, from City of Hope, emailed me the lyrics to this song when I was sucking it up on my first World Cup trip in November of 2001. I was checking my email at a laundromat in Innsbruck, Austria, when I got his email. He wrote, "You have to read this. I finally understand why you love the Offspring so much."
"Defy You" is the gold medal victory lap song that I will probably never live up to. If I don't win in Torino, (ha-ha-ha!!! Will I even be there?) then I hope some other skater picks it because it is the best victory lap song ever written. It makes me grateful to even compete in a sport where you can choose your own victory lap song:
"When the wind blows
I'll lean into the wind.
My anger grows
I'll use it to win."
I think that defiance, itself, has been the determining factor of the success of my comeback. You know that if I had been born to former Olympian parents, my federation loved me, and my hometown held bake sales for me, I would probably have locked myself in the basement with my microscope! That's just the way I am.
(from Splinter)
This album came out during the year of the Infamous Overtraining Experiment. One of my skating friends found that the songs on it hit so close to home that he had to hide Splinter under his bed for his own good!
9. Race Against Myself:
A race can be used as a metaphor for a lot of things in life, but for me, this song was word-for-word, 100% literal:
"Burning out, strung along
Now my sorrow is my song
My whole world is half-hearted.
For my pain I have none
After all is said and done
Now I'm back where I started."
This song called to mind 6 weeks of waking up with a heart rate of 68-72 beats per minute; of getting dropped on every single freakin' team bike ride; of skating a 4:54 in the 3K a week before the Fall World Cup trials; of actually watching my coach's dog for a few days while the rest of my team went off to race in Europe. And that was only the beginning.
10. Lightning Rod:
Back when I had my web site, this song was on it, and I had explained that if you call Jennifer Rodriguez "J-Rod," then you can call me "Lightning Rod..." because it's not about the speed - it's about being struck.
The last lines of this song describe the most likely ending to my own story - the time that is fast approaching - when I will pack it in and head back to the lab:
"All I am
My last stand
And I know
For all the rising and falling,
There's nothing to show."
So, there you have it - The Protocol's tribute to the Offspring. Maybe punk rock is not so evil after all!?! What is good and what is evil, anyway? The Offspring have had irate parents break their kids' CD's into bits and pieces, and mail them back to the band. But these might be the same parents who would "oooh and aaaah" over the purity of the Olympics and wouldn't hesitate to hand their kid a pair of speedskates, saying, "Here, kid. Try these."
But this most pure of Olympic sports almost destroyed my life, while that so-called "evil" punk band known as the Offspring helped to restore my will to live.
posted by Eva at 1:07 PM
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