You're a Grown-Up...really?

As a lyricist, I really enjoy songs of social commentary. For example, I love Nickelback's "Rock Star." Superficially, it describes why "we all just wanna be big rock stars" but if you listen closer to the lyrics and how they are delivered, you start realizing its mocking the rock star/celebrity lifestyle. Wikipedia backs me up, so it must be true.

So how fitting, while trying to write a "coming of age song," that I write a commentary on the graduation from college into the real world. Many of my friends have graduated and say they now have a "grown up job" and I echo that remark. But what makes us grown up? I mean, even when we reach the "grown up age" a lot of us are still acting like kids. And I feel I should know as I work daily with both (meaning both kids and adults, not kid-like adults and adult-like kids...)

More specifically, we come to college as teens, exit as adults, and yet...why are we suddenly deemed adults? Because we have a diploma? Because we're now 22-27 (depending on when you start)? Because that's what's expected of society? Because there's nothing else to call us?

In my child language development class, we often talked about the difference between chronological age and mental age. I think many in my generation are suffering from this in a more psychological than developmental sense. I've heard it describe as extended adolescence. And I have my moments as well...quite a few actually.

So here is my social commentary song, a satire of college/adult life. I dedicate this to all my friends who have just graduated from good ole "Blooming Town."

Blooming Town

we come here in mass
top of the class
caught up in our own little worlds

we leave looking back
gather up all the slack
sent off as the new and improved generation
or at least an imitation of

a grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
sitting in the back row chairs
asleep unaware?
that I was grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
writing the final page
of the paper due yesterday?
I'm grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
out late on a Thursday night
walk in late for my 9am
How did I grow up again?

we come here to learn
with the bees and the birds
and some books on the side

and we leave here to learn
there's still so much to learn
that was never explained in the books
life is harder than it looks

I'm a grown up now
But how'd I grow up?
sitting in the back row chairs
asleep unaware?
that I'm a grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
writing that final page
of the paper due yesterday?
I'm grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
out late on a Thursday night
walk in late for my 9am
How did I grow up again?

when I was young and I saw them, i thought
surely they must be so mature
but now that I'm them, I see once again
that age doesn't dictate how you act anymore

I'm a grown up now
But how'd I grow up?
sitting in my cubicle chair
asleep unaware?
that I'm a grown up now
but how'd i grow up?
working the 9-5
somehow means i'm alive and
I'm a grown up now
but how'd I grow up?
out late on Thursday night
clock in late for the 9am
How did I grow up again?

How did I grow up again?
How did I grow up again?