Name: Rachel 
The first time my thirteen-year-old brother played the song “Teenagers” for me, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but soon found the beat was stuck in my head along with the first line of the chorus “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me.” With this project in mind, I went back and took a look at this song and found myself getting intrigued by the way that the song spent time highlighting how frustrating it is to fit in as a teenager, both with peers and with the adult world, and the anger that comes with the world forcing them to conform from all sides.
The song highlights stress from both teen peers and the adult world that make teenagers feel as though they do not fit in anywhere. The song opens with the lines “They’re gonna clean up your looks / with all the lies in the books / to make a citizen out of you.” It draws the listener in talking about how teens look out into the adult world, and see adults trying to make them into young adults. In the process of ‘becoming a citizen’, teens feel that adults strip them of their individuality starting with the way they dress, their looks. The song goes on to say it doesn’t stop at trying to make teenagers look like adults, they try to take over their thoughts. “They gonna rip up your heads / your aspirations to shreds,” the singer proclaims. Teenagers feel that their unique dreams are going to be ripped apart by the overbearing adult world that tries to make them into cogs in the working world, rather than human beings.
Secondly, the song shows that teens won’t fit in amongst their peers. “The boys and girls in the clique / the awful names that they stick / you’re never gonna fit in much kid.” Teenagers not only face the concept of conforming to the adult world, but the teen world as well. They are taunted for not fitting in, and made to feel inferior for their uniqueness. There is a futile feeling of not belonging to any world, which in the most extreme cases leads to the third theme of the song.
Lastly, this song paints a violent image with phrases like “another cog in the murder machine.” The song shows the pressures of conformity and the pain of having individuality stripped from all sides. It shows us one level to which this pain can be dealt with. “Darken your clothes and strike a violent pose / maybe they’ll leave you alone.” This is one reaction to the pressure to conform, to take a negative persona and push people away. Everyone has surely seen in their high school the ‘goth’ and ‘emo’ kids who appear standoffish and wear black clothing as a way of expressing their individuality. However, the song also warns us of another way teens can react to this oppression. “What you’ve got under your shirt / will make them pay for the things that they did.” While not explicitly stated, this line seems to hint to gun or knife violence and a need for revenge on the people who have attacked them and to attack them in return.
It’s easy to pick up on the violence of this song. However, rather than supporting the idea of teen violence, it examines how teens become violent and how the world reacts to them. A world where teens feel they don’t fit into any world is a world where teenagers can become a danger, but it’s a reaction from the world they are in.
