I’m An Adult Now – The Pursuit Of Happiness

This snarky post punk pre grunge gripeathon could have been concocted in a laboratory where Green Day and The Replacements were put in opposite particle collision pods and had their atoms mingled through the ether.

The Pursuit Of Happiness sounded pissed off with adulthood while I was still very much a child. I came to the record about a decade after it was released and it had all the hall marks of an artifact from a by gone era.

“Well, I don’t hate my parents I don’t get drunk just to spite them, I’ve got my own reasons to drink now I think I’ll call my dad up and invite him”

There was a punk and alternative night I used to go to while at university which used to break out this track regularly and it really got under my skin. It was hard to dance to and no one in attendance had ever heard it. Nor do I think anyone other than the DJ even liked the song as far as I could tell and yet it got played every time I went.

“I can sleep in ’til noon anytime I want, though there’s not many days that I do, gotta get up and take on that world, when your an adult it’s no cliche, it’s the truth”

The DJ was also the Guy who ran the night and the vinyl pusher at the local punk record shop. In hindsight I see why he insisted on this piece of dance floor death before he finished his set. It spoke to him on a direct level. He was looking the lyrics in the eye and nodding while the college kids asked for him to play Suede and Blur and Primal Scream.

I can only assume The Pursuit Of Happiness hit the stage straight out of one pod with their guitars just above their knees and the lyrics to I’m Adult Now already tumbling from their mouths. Meanwhile in another pod in a dark basement somewhere there are dozens of abortive attempts which came off as nothing more than…

“Some guy screaming in a leather jacket”

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