She was a skater girl from Napanee, can we make it any more obvious?
Odds are from that intro alone one can deduce the text that follows will be about Avril Lavigne. Considering the Let Go album that reference stems from is now 20 years old, that’s a pretty good testament both Avril’s staying power and how synonymous she is with her hometown.
That’s why there was plenty of hometown pride last week when one of our own was formally enshrined into Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
While most artists would have tried to distance themselves from their small town roots, for Avril it became just as a part of her identity. So much so that the track My World from her famous debut album even name-drops the town. Granted the lyrics also detail how she was fired from Napanee’s Dixie Lee, but as they say, write what you know.
A Napanee resident telling anyone outside the ‘613’ area code where they reside, odds are pretty good they’ll be met with the response ‘isn’t that where Avril is from?’ In contrast, just looking at some of her contemporaries from the top selling artists of 2002-Pink, Norah Jones, Nelly, Shakira-outside of their biggest fans, few would be able to name what town those artists grew up in. Their country or state of origin, maybe. But the actual town they grew up in before they made it big? That’s a much more difficult trivia question.
Fortunately for Greater Napanee, Avril has remained scandal free for the last two decades. There was that time when she referred to Napanee as ‘dull and boring’ when she was first starting out, but she’s hardly the first teen to say that. She more than made up for it when she donned the iconic red Home Hardware shirt during her performance on Saturday Night Live in January of 2003. She’s also made more than a few trips back to her old stomping grounds since achieving super stardom, so it’s fair to say the town still holds a soft spot in her heart.
By in large she’s been a good role model for the younger generation, proving that growing up in a small town doesn’t mean one can’t follow their dreams and make it big. Students who walk the halls of NDSS can draw inspiration from her story as she’s included in the school’s wall of fame-an honour she held long before Hollywood recognized her.
Now with 20 years in the business, her songs still receive regular airplay on most top 40 radio stations and she remains one of the best selling female artists of all time. There haven’t been any decade old unearthed interviews of her saying something cringe worthy that would cause the town to have to distance themselves from her. In todays pop culture world, that’s saying something.
And for that reason, we as residents can feel no shame if the only thing outsiders know about the town that Lavigne once lived here. There’s worse things to be known for.
-Adam Prudhomme