"They tried to file my points, sand my edges, and I just grew out my hair." - "Mr. Misunderstood," by Eric Church
When I was a kid, I was always the underdog. For as long as I can remember, I've always been placed in less than ideal situations and have had to work harder then anybody else to get half of what they do. I could study for 10 hours and get that C+ while somebody else didn't care to crack a book and got an A. I would see all my buddies asking out attractive girls so nonchalantly while it would take me weeks just to get the courage to talk to them. When I got to high school, it wasn't much different. I still had to bust my tail 10 times harder then any other person just to get an "Attaboy!"
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For a lot of those reasons (and more) I love songs about underdogs, songs about people that have to go above and beyond just to get recognized for the work they put in even if it's a lot later in life. For this, Eric Church's "Mr. Misunderstood" is one of my many theme songs.
First off, if you haven't heard the song, go listen to it. The video is below:
Secondly, if you've ever had a moment in your life where you thought you were a misfit, an outsider, just somebody that didn't fit in, this is the song for you. Church sings to a hypothetical awkward teenager who sits in the back of the class, listens to music out of the norm and always feels left out. Church resonates with the kid and lets him know that he is just like him and just as Church did, will make a name for himself "One day you'll lead the charge, you'll lead the band/Guitar Hero with lightning hands/And the girls will like your tattoos and the veins in your arms/They'll be helpless to your musical charms".
After that, Church sings the autobiographical part of "Mr. Misunderstood." He goes on about his experiences growing up like falling for Alabama Hannah, singing and playing wherever he could, claiming his audience and making the "head scratchers" love the guy that nobody understood. He describes this in such detail. With lines like "So I went with it like a colt on my Plymouth/Through the glass behind my rear-view/Took a left when the world went right down 16th Avenue," Church expresses the notion that success doesn't come from what the world considers "right." He is an artist that goes out of the box musically and is so different from anybody like him before. If you listen to the song itself, you can tell. There's about three different times where the tempo changes in the course of five minutes.
Church is the definition of the so called "Mr. Misunderstood." He does what he wants, says what he wants and sings about what he wants. With this song, he gives people like me who just feel like nobody gets them hope for a better future, that who we are now isn't who we will be in the future. I love this because especially over the course of the last seven months, I've had to figure out who I am as a person as well as who I want to be.
So, to all the Mr. or Ms. Misunderstoods, keeping rocking and doing what you do or the world will never know what you can bring to the table.
