Alanis Morissette made her big breakthrough outside Canada with her third album Jagged Little Pill. Five songs from that album became top ten hits at the very least. One of these songs was You Learn, probably my favorite song of hers.


What is the song all about and why is it so great ?

You learn is a midtempo song that has drums, guitar, bass and synth. My musical knowledge being pretty much insignificant, I can’t tell you more about the sound, other than the music sounds great to me.

Alanis starts the song by making some ‘ooooh” noises and then quickly starts singing verse 1 :

I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

The first line is about how much you can learn from a bad experience. ‘Walking naked’ is about accepting your body the way it is and accepting yourself. I think swallowing ‘a jagged little pill’ is a metaphor for swallowing your pride. It may hurt at first but then after some time you’ll feel relieved.

Then Alanis starts singing the chorus :

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

The chorus is about all the everyday life situations and the fact that each of them teaches us something. We all learn a lot from them whether they’re good or bad.

Time for verse 2 :

I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at anytime
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

To me, this is a metaphor for getting on with our lives and not being afraid of ‘sticking [our] foot in [our] mouth’. At some moment you need to forget about your fears and just start to enjoy yourself. You’ll make mistakes but ‘feel free’ because you’ll learn so much from them that it doesn’t really matter.

Again Alanis sings the chorus and then starts making some funny/annoying vocalizations.
After it’s the bridge :

Wear it out (like a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

The bridge is about how we should enjoy everything to the maximum and not worrying about the consequences. If something is to happen, it will happen.

Then it’s the chorus and Alanis actually continues with another chorus :

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

This chorus describes other everyday situations that we learn a lot from. Then the song ends.

Not so long ago (last week actually), as I wrote my entry to the Desert Island Discs W/O , I picked this song as one of the eight songs that I would take to a desert island, because (to quote my own words) : ‘This is the song I like to listen when I need to be cheered up’. The song means a lot to me because of its positive message. When I’m in a bad mood, it reminds that ‘you live you learn’. No matter how bad or good my experiences are, I will always learn something from them. These experiences make me grow up and (hopefully) make me a better person.



What about the one (and only) b-side we get ?

The sole b-side we get is You Oughta Know (the Jagged Little Pill version). I guess that most of you know about this song, probably 1995’s biggest hit. In the song, Alanis complains to a lover who dumped her for another lady, even though he promised Alanis he would never leave her. I like the song, though it’s not my favorite song from Alanis. You Oughta Know is an uptempo rock song. What I enjoy about the song is the line ‘you told me you’d hold till you die/ but you’re still alive’. Because loving someone forever is the kind of silly promise you make when you’re in love but that you quickly forget when you find someone else. Isn’t it ironic ? Well, maybe not, irony is hard to define, but the song is still pretty cool.



Final recommendation :

Should you buy this single ? Since the single only offers two songs that you can already find on Jagged Little Pill, I recommend the single only to new fans of Alanis that want to hear some of her previous work but that can’t afford or don’t want to buy a whole album.



These are my own interpretations of the songs.
Thanks for reading.






Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends