I'm not quite as well, I thought you should know

When I was in fourth grade, there were three CDs on constant rotation in my boom box. No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom," Matchbox 20's "Yourself or Someone Like You," and Alanis's "Jagged Little Pill," which I actually had on cassette.

I remember listening to Alanis's mournful wailing on the floor of my bedroom floor, reading along to the lyrics and thinking "This is what life is like. This is what my life is like." And now, I wonder why, and what I could possibly have been thinking. I was nine. How did I "relate" to lyrics like:

Is she perverted like me
Would she go down on you in a theatre

Or:

I'm hard but I'm friendly baby
I'm sad but I'm laughing
I'm brave but I'm chickenshit
I'm sick but I'm pretty baby

But we all loved her. And when we found out that "You Oughta Know" was really about Alanis's relationship with Dave Coulier (Uncle Joey, of "Full House" fame), didn't we feel shocked, and a little bit hurt for her? I continued to support Alanis through her "Thank U" and especially "Uninvited" phases. City of Angels soundtrack, anyone? When I was a freshman in high school, and most of the formerly pre-pubescent Alanis fans had long since outgrown her bitter rage, I gave her CD "Under Rug Swept" a try. It had some good songs for an insecure, overimaginative fourteen-year-old to latch onto, such as "Unsexy" or my favorite "Hands Clean", about a May-December romance cloaked in deception and disappointment.

But as I watched Alanis perform a new song on TV this week, it occurred to me that I had forgotten what a unique...erm, voice she has. While it's certainly powerful, and can be moving, her pronunciation and phrasing is particularly unusual. Which made me think: What if you learned English by listening to Alanis Morissette? How on Earth would you talk? I could go on, but I'll let you listen to the song I heard her perform, and you can let your imagination run wild. I can't decide whether I should fully endorse an Alanis resurgence, especially since I'm sure she has some good angry material after her break up with Ryan Reynolds, or if we should choose to remember the Alanis we loved in elementary school, when we really loved her best.