‘Adam’s Song’ but also yours and mine, too.

I’ve listened to ‘Adam’s Song’ a lot this week, and I broke down once or twice.

Though I don’t much care for current Blink-182, they were a hugely formative and important band for me as a teenager. I can’t think of them without thinking of school friends who styled themselves on Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus, down to forming their own band and wielding the same guitars.

I can’t hear the riffs on Enema of the State without thinking of being in a practice room shed in Drogheda in awe of kids who were cooler than I could ever hope to be. I sat behind a drum kit for the first time ever there, where they taught me how to play the opening of this very song.

“He’s going to be a drummer,” one said to the other, smiling.

“He’s going to be a drummer,” the other proudly smiled back.

I was, too. But it’s been some time and I miss it a lot. There are many lines in ‘Adam’s Song’, almost all of them unconcerned with subtlety but not in the crass, juvenile Blink-182 mould, more of a, ‘Fuck it, why lie?’ way. I love them all, really, but “16 just held such better days” hits harder than ever 20 years on. It did, of course, and you didn’t and couldn’t know or accept it then because your big problems were the biggest they could ever hope to be, right?

The song is about suicide, supposedly inspired by a fan, but that’s actually not true. Nonetheless, the sentiment resonated and continues to resonate with many people who adore music, adore their friends, want love, want to live. Mark Hoppus isn’t the strongest singer in the world, which helps the story. Sometimes, you don’t need to be profound. Sometimes, you can barely speak.

The ‘best’ music is something that gets inside you and makes you have a physical reaction. At least, that’s how it works for me. Maybe you’re different. We’re all different, only when we’re not at all. ‘Adam’s Song’ tells a very simple story in which its fictional title character seemingly decides on ending his life only to maybe find a reason — however plain and ordinary — to continue on.

The conclusion isn’t necessarily one of pure categorical triumph, though the soaring music and Hoppus’ vocals, fighting against the current, suggests some class of personal victory. You get the sense that he’s trying his best, that he just needs a break — the metaphor is mostly about wanting to get off the road while touring — and maybe someone to tell him that it’ll all be okay in the end.

It isn’t always okay in the end, though. ‘Adam’s Song’ doesn’t lie about that. It has too much respect for the listener. It feels almost out of place arriving not long after ‘What’s My Age Again?’ and before ‘All The Small Things’, mega-hits that broke Blink-182 into the mainstream forever. But this is a band that have always been good value for sneaking in meaningful themes and impressive weaponry — Travis Barker is maybe the greatest secret weapon out there — and so ‘Adam’s Song’ makes perfect sense in its imperfect way.

I go to this song not as a cure for a bad day but as a salve, a handful of minutes there if and when I need them, understanding precisely what I’m going through. I’m no great optimist but I don’t take a sad story from it. I find hope.

There’s tremendous, painful honesty and empathy here, coated in desperate words that tell a conflicted life story in one sentence — “Please tell mom this is not her fault” is an intensely hard blow to the chest, because it should be — and a non-judgemental invitation to maybe just stay a while longer.

I guess I lost the thread here a bit, as we all do, and I guess that’s okay.

Besides, I’m a drummer. All I need to do is keep time.