Welcome to My Life

On their first album, Simple Plan earned a legion of young fans with songs about finding your way in this world while overcoming outside interference (parents). On their second album, they followed up on this theme with "Welcome To My Life," where frontman Pierre Bouvier sings about what it's like to get pushed around because you don't fit in. Bouvier wrote the song with Simple Plan drummer Chuck Comeau - they are the songwriting tandem in the group. In a Songfacts interview with Bouvier, he explained how it came together: "A lot of the songs we've written were a true collaboration where Chuck would come up with a line and tell me all of these ideas for lyrics, and I'd pick out the ones I thought were more of a chorus line, and then I would just sing it out loud. For 'Welcome To My Life,' he said, 'What about a song called 'Welcome To My Life' that's about how things are difficult and if you ever felt that way, well, welcome to my life.' I sang the melody, and we built the rest of the pieces around that."

Simple Plan followed the path forged by blink-182 with an irreverent pop-punk sound that was big in the early '00s. Like most groups in the scene, they were making music as teenagers and came of age watching underground punk bands perform. Many adults looked down on these modern punks, which fueled their resolve and informed their music. "Welcome To My Life" is a great example of a Simple Plan song that speaks to those kids they grew up with, who were often labeled outcasts and usually felt that way. For these kids, it was refreshing to hear a voice that understood what it was like inside their skin.

The music video was directed by Philip Atwell, who did a lot of hip-hop, including videos for 50 Cent and Eminem. It was shot at the Heim Bridge in Los Angeles, where the band is seen performing amid a traffic jam - an homage to the R.E.M. video for "Everybody Hurts." This concept ties in with the song. "That idea of being stuck on a bridge and having nowhere to go is kind of the whole point, the feeling of the song, so we incorporated it into the video, Chuck Comeau explained.