Driver Educatin Thoughts

After contemplating the readings and considering the lyrics of Driver Education by the Indigo Girls I would like to share the following thoughts. In the article, “A Body of Text.” The authors bring up the notion that, “people rely on others to have knowledge about the gender script to which they are performing their identity, since this is the only way in which their interactions can be meaningful. This is known as interactional knowledge. (van Zoonen p424)” Driver Education plays on these gender scripts heavily. In fact, it counts on you knowing the scripts by heart so you can fully realize the change present in the main character of the song. The well-placed references (school bus, pledging allegiance, driver's ed) clue us into the fact that these are high school aged teens.

The song promotes a girlhood full of experimentation. First this girl “falls” for boys who smell like cigarettes and drink Pepsi. We understand this is no longer the case when we hear, “Now its tattooed girls with a past they can't remember.” “Bending the curriculum.” is a not-so-veiled reference to the “non-normative” lifestyle addressed within the song. She regrets sex with these boys as it did not lead to the “scene” she thought it would. She laments to this other girl, “Where were you when I had something to prove?” As if her first sexual experience should have been with the current girl. You get a sense the narrator has learned life's hard lessons. “Kissing in the deep end of swimming pools before I knew what's in there.We come into this life waterlogged and tender.” clearly the narrator avoids “deep water.” meaning she tries to avoid being in over her head now in her life. The reference to being born has to do with how she is now which is the opposite of a newborn. She is much older and aware of who she is and what life hands out at times.

 I would say this band doesn't need an extensive record collection. They have bypassed all “nerd” collectors. Opting instead to make their own musical artifacts. The song positions queer culture in a place of acceptance which is where it should be. Finding true love as opposed to just sex is an undercurrent present in the song as well.