Avril Lavigne’s Goodbye Lullaby is out today, and among its tracks is a song called “Smile,” in which she takes time out of her schedule of acting totally off the hook y’all so she can write a sorta-saccharine ode to her partner in wildness:
The song kind of sounds like what would happen if Michelle Branch and Ke$ha had a kid… who was really into drinking laced-with-knockout-drops beverages. Wait, what?
Last night I blacked out, I think
What did you—what did you put in my drink?
I remember making out and then (oh, oh)
I woke up with a new tattoo
Your name was on me and my name was on you
I would do it all over again
So yes, that’s Avril singing about having a wild and wacky night with the object of her affections—a stretch of time that was so awesome, she thinks that she might have been drugged before tripping down to the tattoo parlor and permanently etching her man’s name into her skin. But she’d totally do it again! Or, rather, have it done to her again? Is there something a bit skin-crawly about this?
Now, this lyric could be the result of Avril (and co-writers Max Martin and Shellback) concocting a really stretched-out metaphor about true love having a liberating effect similar to really primo pharmaceuticals, which is a common thread among people reaching for romance-releated metaphors (see also: “Is My Drug, Your Love”; “And Other Drugs, Love”); earlier in the song she yelps about wanting to “lose control,” so perhaps this man is the one who allowed her to finally do so. Or it could be the result of Avril still, after all these years, being infatuated with the vision of herself where she’s the ultimate rebel; maybe she counts “not being OK with getting drugged against your will” as an opinion that only the fogiest of old people hold? Or is this lyric a weird residual result of her Alice In Wonderland-obsessed period? Whatever the explanation, yuck. (And also, be careful next time!)