Joe Lies

by Amelia Morris

The summer before tenth grade, I was confused. I had just quit gymnastics yet retained the look of a slightly taller Kim Zmeskal circa 1992 and was starting a brand new school in the fall.

The only thing I had going for me was the one friend I’d made in my new town. That summer, needless to say, she was my best friend. She was also a total punk rocker.

At my previous school, I had fallen comfortably into a sort of alternateen identity. I listened to Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Smashing Pumpkins and dressed accordingly—tshirts from thrift shops and cargo pants. But as anyone who has attended high school knows, if I wanted to fit in with my new group, I would need to cloak my Zmeskal-ian body with a brand new identity or risk being completely alone forever.

I bought a pair of doc martens, cut my hair short, tore up and patched my jeans, bought a shit load of punk rock CDs, (and so sadly, no, I didn't start with The Clash or The Jam or even The Sex Pistols. I got me some freshly used Op Ivy, Swinging Utters, Anti-Flag, and Minor Threat) and I started going to shows. "Not a concert, Mom. A show! And… I hate you!"

For the most part, it worked. I had a new group of friends and no one called me a poseur, except for my then on-again-off-again crush and now husband, Matt, who was no longer punk, but New Wave and who called me out for the alternateen I really was.

The only problem was I couldn't stand the music I'd bought. I hated the shows, too, especially the mosh pits. All the songs were too fast and too loud, and why was everyone so angry? I was way too young to be jaded—I didn’t mind the system or the suburbs and, to be honest, my mom was a really nice person.

But then came “Joe Lies” and The Bouncing Souls, and slowly my head began to bob along. Was this considered punk, too? Because I liked this. I liked how the song sort of swelled and then fell into the bridge that made me wait to belt out the refrain. I liked the lyrics too with their simple, relatable message: No. More. Lies! (For some reason, it rang truer to my tiny ears than Anti-Flag’s, You gotta DIE gotta DIE gotta DIE for the government!)

No more lies indeed? By Christmas the following year, I'd found a new group of friends, dropped the old ones in the classic, awkward way that you stop being friends with people with whom you’d previously shared jagged half-heart necklaces, grown my hair out the best I could, purchased Pablo Honey and The Bends, and was generally back to my old self again. My old self with some Bouncing Souls coming out of my step-dad’s Subaru’s stereo, that is.