“Bent” tells the story of a man that is not perfect and is down on life at the moment. He looks for a certain person to help him but is afraid that he may end up making that person like himself in the end. “Can you help me I’m bent. I’m so scared that I’ll never, get put back together. You’re breaking me in, and this is how we will end, with you and me bent.” Adolescents are not likely to pick up this theme considering that it took me to actually analyze the lyrics with them in my face to get it. What they will like is the catchy sound, which in all honesty is what Matchbox twenty has been successful in doing, creating a catchy song and putting OK lyrics to it. A surprise song to Top 40 radio comes in 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite”. This is another song in which the theme isn’t going to be made apparent to an adolescent. The catch to this song is more of the harder edge rock that it is. The opening drum beat sucks you into the song and you don’t want to turn it off. It is something that can be classified as alternative, which is what an adolescent may want as an alternative to normal pop music. The central theme involves the ups and downs of a man and wondering if his woman will still be there in the end. We see this in the lyrics, “If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman. If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand.”. (3 Doors Down) In 1994 we see another cross over from an acoustic folk rock song in Lisa Loeb’s Stay (I Missed You). The central idea to this song is the story of a woman and man that were in a relationship that is now over. The woman in the song wants the relationship still, but the man has left for good. We see this here, “So I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song: the lover’s in love, and the other’s run away, the lover...
