Against Me! - I Was A Teenage Anarchist Lyrics

i was not a teenage anarchist but i am now a 36 year old anarchist

1:42 solidarity moment

The Los Angeles Police Department attacks and arrest Laura in Venice Beach Boardwalk in Los Angeles CA.

I imagine there wasn't much of a budget for this video.

Anarchist here FUCK THE SYSTEM

years and years later and i still vibe to this

The revolution was a lie! -вот смысл песни!!! Вам ничего не напоминает???

Song sucks...............truth is "see a punk, looking for a fight...you see a punk don't mind the weather."

everyone in the background pulls out like a camera or phone and starts recording like "wow, look at that"

If was was black though....

I am a teenage anarchist curious about my future lul

yes. I remember.

I was never an anarchist, but i rememeber over hearing the anarchist and their deep talks about the books they read and how the whole system is fucked 😂😂😂 fucking goth kids, dark cloths, deep souls

[Verse 1]
I was a teenage anarchist, looking for a revolution
I had the style, I had the ambition
I read all the authors, I knew the right slogans
There was no war but the class war
I was ready to set the world on fire
I was a teenage anarchist, looking for a revolution

[Chorus]
Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?

[Verse 2]
I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient
In the depths of their humanity all I saw was bloodless ideology
And with freedom as the doctrine, guess who was the new authority?
I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]
I was a teenage anarchist, but then the scene got too rigid
It was a mob mentality, they set their rifle sights on me
Narrow visions of autonomy, you want me to surrender my identity
I was a teenage anarchist, the revolution was a lie

[Chorus]

[Outro]
I was a teenage anarchist

This song, so hot in Hong Kong right now.

👌👍

A lib anthem

What the fuck does the line "the revolution was lie " mean?

Fuck yea

"All I wanted was a Pepsi, just a Pepsi........."

Communism doesn't pay.

It certainly doesn't pay for the capitalists.

I find this response somewhat vague, I'm assuming it's a knock on capitalism. If so I'm Wondering Which of the great Communist countries you're from?

While I actually do like this song, all I picture is a un masked antifa getting his ass beat, and well deserved!!!!

Highkey this is bringing up a royal fuckton of flashbacks for me.

This song deserves A MUCH BETTER music video. - Love, a Seattle filmmaker and fan of Against Me!

I was a teenage anarchist and now a 34-year old anarchist.

I'm still just a teenage anarchist.

100 greatest punk songs and 200 worst Youtube commercials. Is it still punk if it's monetized?

I love how this song calls the punk community out on all the hypocritical bullshit within the community. Rock on Laura!

I've seen against me 3 Everytime was in Gainesville and Everytime they where beautiful..

Indonesia demonstrans

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acDf0kUt5Us

Please help

It’s funny that I became such a loser from all the stupid decisions I made when I was younger that I’m working at a justice center as fucking janitor and I’m a full on crass and oi polloi fan😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥

good sound, but the radical left sucks!

Citation needed.

I don't know why but something seems strange seeing Laura as The Devouring Mothers and then finding out about against me

Free Hong Kong!

It’s 2019 and the world is on fire. YAY.

Thanks to climate change the world is on fire.

Show with Sony A7iii 1080p 120fps

F*ck you fat police pigs ! My ankle still hurt.

Lucky, He's White !

They se there rifle sights on me

song came out almost 10 years ago. and literally nothing about society has changed

This always inspires me to fight. Fuck pigs!

I love this video. The kid's grin in the cop car at the end is the cherry on the cake. The revolution was a lie?

Drives me nuts that a guy with no stripes is ordering a Sergeant to put him in the car... ok I'm OCD admittedly. ...and I grew up in the 80s punk scene and had to experience this first hand.

I guess this was their swan song ....next stop ....sell out city. Let’s sell our albums at Walmart...Hey, stop throwing those Molotovs, you might set our cds on fire ...we want to sing rock songs and abandon the past and those that believed our words ....we just want to sing rock and roll songs .....

Ya do realize their album after this was about Laura becoming trans right?

AtrocityEquine yea , do you realize their message before this was about.... no compromise, direct action, and integrity ....so, practice what you preach, or dont complain when you get called out as a hypocrite sell out . You can’t have it both ways ...either maintain integrity or go compromise .

anyone else think the anarchist in the video looks like OneyNG

Que the backpack toss

I'm still a teenage anarchist 🔥

Damn Pigs. FTP

hmm must have been part black

This band is the epitome of White Privilege.

Tumblrism much?

Also love how you ignore the fact the vocalist not only wasn't the luckiest person on Earth (seriously, read her damn book), bur is also a transgender.

Go back to Tumblr to whine about muh whites and muh st8s.

So many feels!

Fuck u commies!

I have three counts of destruction to property misdemeanors as a teen. Fucking A

In the face of political unrest, do not flock to violence, for that will result in retaliation of the same power that you resent so much.

Instead, approach whoever you disagree with, or the general public, and critique them firmly. Hold your first amendment right, and vocalize your stance.

For those who are so inclined to meet those who they disagree with with violence, bombs, and fists, I urge you to reconsider.

The introduction resembles the introduction of Caught in You from the 38 specials

Inspiration for the music video from Laura's life- I went to the same high school as Laura- I'm not surprised this happened at all in Naples, Florida. "An arrest at age 14 crystallized her aversion to authority: having gone to the beach on Independence Day 1995 to watch fireworks, "I walked up on the boardwalk, and a cop was like 'Hey, get off the boardwalk; you're blocking the flow of traffic'. So I turned around and got off, and he came up to me again and was like, 'Get off the boardwalk.' And I was like 'I'm off the boardwalk.'"[7] Grace claims to have then been slammed into a police car, thrown face-first to the pavement, jumped on, hogtied, carried "like a suitcase", put in a holding cell, not allowed to call her mom at that time,[17] charged with resisting arrest and battery, placed under house arrest for the summer, and required to do 180 hours of community service, all because "I was a dirty, grubby little punk kid with black spiky hair who hadn't washed his pants in a year."[7][10][13] Grace's mother hired an attorney, whom she could ill afford, who took the case to court and lost. Grace was charged as an adult and ultimately convicted of both felonies.[17] Grace later said the experience "changed my life. [It] politicized me."[18] "I have an inherent trust of mankind. I think authority and government base their power on violence. I refuse to recognize anyone's power over me."[7]" -Wiki article.

Check out the pat the bunny teenage anarchist

im old and still wanna set the world on fire

This totally sounds like a somg from that movie. Hedwig and the angry inch.... It took me time to place that sound

This is a very cringey comment section.

Moral of the story: ACAB

С 16 лет в теме😂😂🤣заЯбись...кто из 2019?

Typical west rich " anarchist" :) money from mommy or social, and fight because " i dont like my iphone,dr martens and new xbox

Anarchist culture in a nutshell

anarcisims just another cult with a plan to make paradise on the bones of anyone oppsed to them... or a group for would be tyrants thugs and other greedy cruel hatefilled sadistic bastards... anarcisim is a joke...

songs alright though.

teenagers are ignorant... you can learn to be less ignorant... but anarcists... you cant learn to be less cult brainwashed, that shit needs intervention by ratinal caring people and years of deconditioning....

https://youtu.be/oB9rp_SAp2U

When I grow up, I'll be a cop killer.

Cm Punk anyone?

just know this band at 2019

What a day to remember this particular song

" I wasa teenager then i sold out! to thepolice!"

Punk4eva brought me here :')

Where is antifa when you need them

"narrow visions of autonomy, you want me to surrender my identity" is such an inherently trans line fuck yeah

I know this is an old video, but I just discovered Against Me! not too long ago. I have been out as trans for four years now. I had heard of Against Me! and knew that Laura was trans, but didn't really get into their music. Last year I lived in Gainesville for a stint for school, and I was fucking miserable. I could barely pay rent each month, and my stupid shitty traumatized brain could barely leave the house and work and go to school. A couple days before I moved back home to Sarasota, this song came on my Spotify Discover Weekly or something like that. I was fucking HOOKED. This was MY kind of music. I was so fucking shocked to realize it was Against Me! because I initially listened to their older stuff, and it just didn't stick with me. Even better, she started out in GVL! She worked at the Top! I love the Top! What the hell! I get nervous about listening to new music because like, it just requires so much emotional energy. Clearly, this song was written before she came out. I didn't know that. I listened to the song over and over and OVER again, fucking FLOORED by how much it moved me. Even though this wasn't written ABOUT her being trans, it resonated that way with me. I have struggled so much through my transition with being forcibly outed when I was 16, facing therapists who told me "it was just a phase", being told left and right by my parents and my school that I was wrong, being shunned, told I was going to hell, God would hate me forever, "I was such a pretty girl! Why would I throw that away?" It was rough. It was fucking awful. So I moved. I felt so much emotional freedom in Gainesville. I could be who I was meant to be. I'm a runner, and I listened to White Crosses for WEEKS on my runs, and without fail, every time, I would have to stop and pause because I was crying so hard. If LJG could say "I'm trans FUCK YOU" and do what she loved full force unapologetically HERSELF, so the fuck could I. I've never seen a trans person like her, at her age, flourish and get out there and fucking DO IT, no matter what ANYONE thought. It gives me so much hope for myself. I'm almost twenty. I'm STILL pre-T and it's killing me. Because of Laura, I have hope that one day, I'll be a forty year old trans person being myself and doing what I love, as the man I know I am.

oh wow!!...no handcuffs!......lucky him...voluntarily jumps into cop car!...way to go dude!

Я тож был анархистом))только в России))я и теперь Анархист ток взрослый и хожу в брюках а не в джинсах)))и коллеги не в курсах что я тот еще Анархист в душе😂😀🤘✌️

"Dooooooo you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?" I never stopped feeling that way & my style keeps getting better & I keep reading & re-reading & re-re-reading the books & finding new books like Just Mercy.

#AgainstMe

Don't run right into the cops when you're running away

Our generations " Born to Run "! Anyone else agree??

i love respecting trans women!!! and if u say ur punk but u don't support trans people then ur not really punk at all, ur just a bigot upholding archaic ideals that absolutely don't fit in with the actual ideals of a revolution

Is the main character of the video a trans woman?

WTF, anarchists DO NOT let their ass be kicked by a f-ing cop. Shit music, shit video. Don't listen this crap, young folks.

bruh, its a song talking about how a lot of people join the anarchist movement when they're young just to be edgy and rebellious.

Punk is about acceptance so if she wants to be a he, she is a he. all these people in the comments who are having a go at him can go and fuck the selves. like the dead Kennedys said NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF

Nice melody, but this is not punk rock kids!

I agree!

I'm on the path to being a photojournalist for indigenous issues. Being trans and Indigenous I know I'll be a target for hate but I say fuck them, time to be a trans soul rebel

I fought the law and then law won

Fuck the police. Don't you think that is overkill. Stop hitting her

The singer has such a manly voice. I'd like to have a beer with him.

She's a woman. I still think she'd be cool to have a beer with.

so many feels!

Karl Marx abandoned his children

Against Me has a penchant for writing easily relatable, unpretentious, honest lyrics. I think Tom (Laura Jane) and co. tell an evolving progressive story with each new album. We went from the staunch anarchist acoustic recordings we all know and love, to the witty political manifesto/love and break up-esque Baby Im an Anarchist to the story of self realization and maturation described in "I was a Teenage Anarchist." Like many who gravitated to anarchism and activism in their early years to combat the religious and political dogma inherent in Western culture and fight the good fight of ultimate freedom and equality. And like many others, myself included to a degree, found himself confronted with the same dogmatic rhetoric from those he considered comrades that they were supposed to be resisting and fighting against. (Personally i believe this is a result of being a radical leftist in an oppressively capitalistic imperialist society in which comrades are few and enemies are infinite. In the face of this adversity groups with common enemies yet decidedly varying, often opposing beliefs regarding what comes next once the guillotine has quenched its thirst for justice and the palaces have been burned occupy the same public vocal space of resistance and opposition. For example, in the vipers nest of western capitalist imperialism, you will find anarchists, communists, socialists, libsoc's, green anarchists, anarchosyncicalysts, anarchocommunists, feminists both anarcho/otherwise and left leaning anti-racist/fascist groups all with gas masks and flags comprising a black bloc. So while unity is displayed in such settings, once the common enemy has been overcome these once allies will violently and righteously pursue their respective end goals. The anarchists would tear the entire fabric of society as we know in a bid to return to localised collective efforts for survival. The communists will make moves to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat of which previous comrades together clad in black manning the barricades, the aforementioned anarchists will effectively become enemies of the new state. The socialists will take steps to margianalize both anarchists, communists and everyone in between because unlike the communists they desire no transition from the socialist state of the proletariat to an effective abolition of the state, money and any remaining semblance of private property in the final step towards true communism. And of course the libsoc's will differ greatly from the more militant anarchist factions, communists and trade unions/syndicalists in their view of how the revolution would be realized and achieved. Which would almost from the get go put them at odds with their black clad anti-fascist street soldiers. Activists and leaders among each previously mentioned group are notorious intellectuals and champions of extensive theorizing and postulating, and are therefore very aware of the striking and divisive end goals of their for-the-moment comrades. I think the dogma Tom writes about having experienced while an anarchist activist is a direct result of the divisions within the current left resistance. In an environment rife with intellectuals well versed in theory believing they can argue an Anarchist to submitting to the communist cause or convincing a communist to reverse years of radical indoctrination to make a turn from an end goal of total abolition of state/money/class in favor of a more socialized progressive version of the current system they view as public enemy no.1 to freedom and equality.
I hope the previous comments were aptly worded to portray the futility of compromise and impossibility of a unified front rather than a second phase of the civil war where they will transition from fighting their bourgeois countrymen to fighting their once comrades in the fight to overthrow the imperialists. Currently it benefits the various factions within the opposition to collectively and cooperatively plant and sow the seeds of dissent. However once the revolution is underway and the common enemy is stripped of its authority the once comrades will likely begin a brutal process of becoming the lead horse in the race to the finish. I envision the infighting to fill the power vacuum will be more ruthless, brutal and protracted than the overthrow of the bourgeois. It is from the knowledge that a long violent road lay ahead of them in their quest for realization of their respective notions of a just utopian future that the rigorous dogma written about in "Teenage Anarchist" was born. Lets be honest. The vast majority of leaders and voices of the various opposition factions are predominantly known for being of the intellectual ilk and being more well-versed in their groups theories than in urban guerilla tactics, sabotage methods, resource mobilization necessary to supply a military front and certainly not the military tactics and intelligence gathering necessary for a smaller revolutionary group to effectively fight a much larger, better equipped, highly trained enemy specialized in crushing movements like ours.
Because the likelihood of a popular uprisimg fully taking root in our lifetimes at the momemt looks slim and the need for knowledge of military tactics is still some ways off from being a necessity. Therefore we are still in the early stages of dissent and recruitment/education. The more new comrades each faction can recruit the less violent the overthrow of the upper/middle/ruling classes (bourgeoisie/petit-bourgeoisie). So given the current stage of the revolution rhetoric, propaganda amd dogma take precedence over direct action amd potentially perceived acts of aggression against the current state and the ruling corporate hierarchy. While this description is an honest assessment of the current state of the opposition to the capitalists, many young passionate activists ready to take to the streets in open defiance and rebellion against the corporate puppet government, including myself recognise the importance of establishing a clear understanding not just what we're against but more importantly what we're for. Once again this urgent establishment of the idea of what we're fighting for and how to achieve it leaves anxious activists ready to smash the state in a protracted debate of rank-n-file dogmatic boundaries and theory that feels like splitting philosophical hairs.
Ok long protracted rant over. Hoping others will read my novella and share their views amd experiences regarding frustration towards a seemingly endless debate of what group is the most right and why

The fact that she was beaten up by cops when she was a teenager...

Anarchism is too mainstream now. Fascism is way better. Its a new anti-anti-movement.

Back in 2010 I was 16 and did not understand this song, now it feels a little painful to listen to it

Level the playing field, then play!

This band was great when they had a man singing. :( another mutilated victim of liberal theology.

Oh my god you did notm

I'm 20 and I still wanna set the world on fire

Honnestly. Police brutality used to be non lethal. Guees that got boring. I dont really count as an anarchist personally but man I do wanna tear some shit the fuck down. Look at that orange sycophant, and then tell me the system aint just fucked.