"The Kids Aren't Alright" is a song by The Offspring. It is the fifth track from the band's fifth studio albumAmericana and was released as the third single from the album. It became another top 10 hit on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart. Its title is an allusion to the Who song "The Kids Are Alright". Despite not being as commercially successful as its predecessor singles, "The Kids Aren't Alright" remains the most-listened to Offspring song amongst Last.FM users, and still receives some radio play. The song was used in the opening scene of the film The Faculty, and appears on the soundtrack album. It is also available as downloadable content for the Rock Band video game series. The song also appears as the ninth track on their Greatest Hits album of 2005.
Composition
The song lyrics tell the stories of several people from a town and the problems they faced growing up. Dexter Holland wrote the song after visiting his home town, Garden Grove, California. Holland said, "You grow up in America, and you're supposed to have a bright future." During his visit he discovered that was not the case for many residents of the town.
Track listing
Original pressing
Alternative pressing
Second alternative pressing
Third alternative pressing
Promo CD
Cassette Single
Music video
It features a room with a background of abandonment or family activity at different times. In the center of the room, there are scenes of various persons, including an appearance by Bif Naked, doing stereotypical things and moves; occasionally band members show up. The camera pans around the room and the changing of the scenes of persons constantly morphing and shifting between each other. The background can be seen shifting between two time lines, one where the scene is the past, where things are new and white, and modern days where it is dreary and drab. The music video, directed by Yariv Gaber, released a month before the CD single, received heavy airplay on MTV. It was later nominated for Best Direction on the MTV Video Music Awards. The visuals in the video are made with rotoscoping techniques.
The album art features two different drawings for this song. The first depicts a scarecrow falling into the tentacles shown prominently in other single and album covers from Americana. This art also appeared in the accompanying booklet for the album. The second, alternative cover shows a young child reaching for a gun, with ominous blood near to it.
''Rock Band''
The song was also released as downloadable content for the game Rock Band, released on March 10, 2009.
Other versions
Live versions of the song were released with "Want You Bad" and "Hit That". A remix appeared as the b-side to "She's Got Issues" and was later included on the Greatest Hits album. The download version of Splinter included "The Kids Aren't Alright ", an instrumental version of the song featuring ukulele and steel guitar. Evergreen Terrace recorded a version of the song for their 2004 covers albumWriter's Block. The same year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technologya cappella group Logarhythms recorded the song for their album Soundproof. Chris Webby's "Fragile Lives" samples the song's chorus and uses a similar four-chord progression.
