For my History of Rock Music class for school, we had the following prompt: Choose and discuss a song or album that you feel best represents important issues in your life and the lives of your classmates.
I felt Farewell Fighter's latest EP represented this question perfectly, and my response can be read below.
The teenage years are perhaps the most important years of any human’s life. An enormous amount of changes take places, including social growth, puberty, and most importantly self-direction. Nashville, Tennessee based pop-rock band Farewell Fighter focuses on this intriguing period of time on their latest EP The Way We Learn, a seven track effort that brings a listener through the teenage years, as band and listener join together to realize the importance of understanding one’s self and living life to its fullest.
EP opener “Well Wishing” displays the hypothetical teenager’s immaturity, as he or she hasn’t begun his or her growth into an adult. The phrase “I wish I were pretty I wish I were brave, I wish there was somebody else in the world I could save” is commonly heard amongst twelve and thirteen year olds that don’t understand the real priorities in life. But as the EP goes through its twenty-six minute runtime, there is obvious growth within this teenager’s thoughts on life. The title of “Growing Pains” explains it all, as the start of growth is always the toughest, as one needs to realize his or her own flaws in order to grow from this. Finding out that one’s self is flawed is always extremely painful, but is a necessary step to maturity.
“Never Have I Ever” has the teenager finally looking towards the future, rather than the present, as he or she is thinking about his or her dream job. This is a very important realization in any teens’ life, since the teenage years are all about preparing for the future and developing the building blocks that will assist one to his or her goals. “Lust Or Losing It” speaks about what is possibly both a teenager’s biggest dream and biggest nightmare. Sex and love finally enter the mind of the teenager, and become the misguided priority in his or her life. But “Terminal” is one of the biggest breakthroughs in the teen’s road to maturity, as he or she realizes the necessity to take things slowly after the first brutal heartbreak. Relationships are finally beginning to make sense, and things are finally starting to fall into place.
The final two tracks resolve all the rough conflicts that the teenager has dealt with over the high school years. “Where I Belong” is the first hopeful glance after the suffering of rough experiences, which include breakups, difficulty finding one’s true goals, and finding where one belongs. “Golden” is the final breakthrough, as the teenager looks back on everything he or she has learned from all his or her hardships, and realizes that life is worth living and that “we are golden because we’re alive.”
As I have just entered college, I have been through all of these experiences, and am trying to find my true goals in life. “Golden” contains the positivity needed to make it through the hell that one may call the teenage years. Understanding that life is great and that we have the ability to make our own life fantastic gives the strength that we need to live successfully and prosper as a society.
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