Things may change, but my love for Simple Plan songs will always remain constant in all worlds and parallel universes where the Simple Plan exists.
There’s not one hint of exaggeration when I say this band is my first love. They impacted my life in the most incredible way possible, and heaven knows I’ll forever be grateful to them for that. If my memory serves me right, I was 13 when I first heard Perfect on the radio and cried ocean because, for the first time in my life, I had known what being understood felt like.
I am not sure if it should make me happy or sad, but the song became a friend to me more than anyone in high school ever did.
Who knew that after that happy coincidence, Simple Plan would become the voice I did not have. Perfect became easily my favorite song, and it opened me to a new world of music that feels me. Knowing how much of an influence Simple Plan has had on me and probably a million more lost teenagers and adults, I am outraged by how underrated they are. That’s why I decided to write this blog and share the most underrated Simple Plan songs.
These songs deserve more recognition than they are ever getting! But, just before I start enumerating, I’d like to briefly introduce the best men I’ve ever known. Below are the gorgeous and insanely talented Simple Plan members.
Simple Plan Members
Pierre Bouvier (Bass Guitar & Front Man)
I’d volunteer for Pierre to adopt me.
David Desrosiers (Bass Guitar)
David has a smile that could melt me like butter. He’s temporarily left the band for personal reasons, but I wish to see him play soon.
Jeff Stinco (Lead Guitar)
Does Jeff age at all? Jeff looks literally the same as he did in 2003; it is almost annoyingly unfair.
Sebastian Lefebvre (Guitar)
The cutest guy behind the guitar with a voice of an angel. I love it when Seb takes on the mic!
Chuck Comeau (Drums)
I badly wanted to learn how to play the drums because you make it look so cool, Chuck.
I can’t write a blog for Simple Plan without gushing over them. It’s been 11 years, and they still are the love of my life, my favorite boys, and my favorite band! Now, time to talk about the top 10 most underrated Simple Plan songs and what each means to me.
10 Underrated Simple Plan Songs
If I could, I’d write every single song they have ever written because they deserve that much love. But to be fair, some of their songs gained so much popularity, even two decades later. I’m Just A Kid took the Tiktok world by storm with this cute throwback trend, and I am the first one to feel ecstatic about it. But there’s more to Simple Plan than this Tiktok trend. They are a masterpiece; you can take the list below as proof.
1. One
“We’re the best thing you had, but you pushed us away”
When I was younger, this song never cracked my favorite Simple Plan songs. But as I got older, the more I understood how heartbreaking the lyrics were. Maybe because as the years passed by, I’ve collected my fair share of painful memories and scars. And along with those terrible experiences is a slight hope for a change.
I guess it is inevitable for us to keep hoping. We hope to stop feeling disregarded, neglected and thrown away by the people we love more than they love us. We hope to simply feel appreciated and valued. However, reality can often be brutal that many things will not go our way no matter how hard we try.
This song taught me that it’s okay to feel rejected, but it’s never okay to keep waiting around. I realize that my future is not predetermined by the ability of other people to see me the way I want them, but by the way I perceive myself. I have the power to create a life where I am always undoubtedly worthy without waiting for them to make me feel as if I am.
2. Meet You There
“You’re gone away
I’m left alone
A part of me is gone, and I’m not moving on
So wait for me
I know the day will come
I’ll meet you there”
At 14, I had known what loss and grief was and how agonizing these feelings could be. I lost my grandfather and hadn’t seen him alive for the last time before heaven took him away from me.
I was a day late.
We were already set on going home that next day, but the universe thought it was funny rather than cruel to have other plans for us. We lost my grandfather the day before we were supposed to go on that trip home. I was never there. I never had a chance to hug or hold his hands for the last time. He didn’t get to hear my thank you’s and I love you’s before he went, but I hope he knows. No amount of luxury will ever amount to that one last time with him that I badly wanted.
It’s my lost wish.
The hardest part was that I hadn’t seen it coming. Never for a second had I ever imagined I’d be having a life without him in it. Until now, it hurts me to think that he’s not here to see me be who I am. If only he were alive, I would have given him the world, even if he didn’t ask. Growing up, he was my hero, and I loved him more than any man, even more so than my father. His arms were the first embraces I remembered to lull me to sleep. That’s why when he left to go for a better place, I knew something in me had been ripped and torn open without any chance of cure.
And I guess that loss made me connect with Meet You There in the most emotional way. This song lent me faith, enough to feel assured that I’d meet him there. Until then, I’ll just settle with gratitude and consider myself lucky for those 14 years I’ve known him. And if heaven has ears, I want him to hear how much I loved him, and even if he’s gone, there’ll never be a love greater than what I had for him. Everyone will always come second because he was the best of the best. And I know it’s long overdue, but I want to thank him for giving me my first fondest memory of what unconditional love should feel like.
Tatay, you made this song so special to me that each time someone I knew experienced a loss, I always shared it with them in hopes it’d comfort them, too.
3. The Rest of Us
“I confess, I’m a mess
I’m perfectly dysfunctional
But I don’t give a damn
If you feel the same
Let me hear you say
Oh-oh! I know why I’m not alone.”
Not all songs have a way of making you feel okay for being imperfect, but this one does. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, The Rest of Us makes me happy and content for being who I am regardless of how messed up I am most days. And perhaps, things aren’t unfolding in front of me, and I have lots to figure out in this life, but the uncertainty makes me a little less anxious when I listen to this on loop.
4. Try
“Never been the best at honesty
You know that you can never count on me
I’ll try for you
But if you give me half a chance, I’ll show
There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you
I’ll try for you”
I think Simple Plan is my Taylor Swift because all their songs are almost so relatable. At any point in my life, there is a Simple Plan song to describe it; Try is one of those songs.
I didn’t always want to talk about my life growing up because I was an idiot. There were versions of myself I wasn’t particularly proud of because they were worth cringing at and unpleasant. Maybe I was partly to blame for being disconnected because I kept hurting other people that tried to unravel me. And I didn’t realize that sooner. My chaos had held me hostage from seeing all the toxic and wrong things I had done to everyone whose intentions for me were pure. And my way of making peace for that version of myself was this song. When I first heard Try, I promised to myself that if I ever met someone who would mean the world to me, I’d make it right. And, that person will never feel as if I am another war that needs to be won.
In 2016, I was blessed to meet someone I could dedicate this song to. I know, I have fallen through many of my bad habits, but thanks for sticking around enough to let you see my best sides, though there were hardly any. You know who you are. Thank you for making every lyric of a love song alive.
5. Grow Up
“This is who I am, and this is what I like
GC, Sum and Blink, and MxPx, rocking my room.”
I think we’ve all been there, daydreaming about staying the same and not having to give a single damn about life. I, too, naively thought I could be uncaring until I die, but when life happens in between, it’ll be hard to recognize who you used to be.
This song used to be my anthem. Whenever I blast it off my headphones, I daydream of doing it differently. I was almost sure I wouldn’t be stuck in a 9-6 routine, or I wouldn’t live just to pay the bills. Well, so much for those ideals. I mean, I am not complaining about where I am in my life right now, but things are obviously far from what I had expected.
But I still love this song regardless if I’ve outgrown it, because it reminds me of simpler times. This song helps me keep an image of my naivety and youth.
6. Never Should Have Let You Go
“And now, every single day that I spend without you
Getting through the night is the hardest thing to do
Since you walked away
I guess you’ll never know what it’s like to miss you
I try to get a grip, put my life back into place
It’s not the same”
Regret really is such a strong feeling. And as someone who rarely feels remorse, this song surprisingly makes me feel like I’ve lost something significant that, for the life of me, I couldn’t name.
I remember being so inspired to write by this song, even wrote a short story about losing everything you once had and posted it on my old Wattpad account. I can’t remember where that write-up is now, but if I ever find it, I’ll edit it and post it on my blog.
7. Gone Too Soon
“In the blink of an eye
I never got to say goodbye.”
Gone Too Soon is like the sequel to Never Should Have Let You Go; only a notch sadder. It’s the same pain and grief, but I relate this song more to death than abandonment. And I don’t know what it is about songs conveying death that draws and gravitates me to them.
Sometimes I ask myself why I enjoy hurting myself through songs with painful stories. Because I’ll tell you, this song sends me to emotional heights that I am not sure if I’ve been in. Of course, I’m familiar with grief, but I was 14.
8. Everytime
“Now I’m sitting here
Like we used to do
I think about my life
And now there’s nothing I won’t do
Just for one more day
One more day with you”
I think my list has gone down the sad lane because Everytime is another song with a sad story, though with a cheerier beat. But if you just disregard the upbeat tempo of the pop-punk genre, you’ll feel the ache that comes from the longing over moments that are now lost in translation, moments that now live in old photographs. The song describes what it’s like to lose someone who made us crave so much for their presence, only to leave after giving us an addicting dose of happiness when we’re with them. That’s why when they are gone, we forget what our life was before them because they became it.
9. Lucky One
“Why do the stars all line up
So perfectly
For everybody, but not for me?”
There are days when I’m hopeful and confident about what my life will become. Those days, I’d trust the universe’s way of making every little thing work for me. But there are days when I’m exhausted from doing my part of the bargain and seeing no tangible results. Lucky One is a list of our maybes and the reality transformed into a song.
10. No Love
“If these walls could talk, they would have so much to say
‘Cause every time you fight, the scars are gonna heal, but they’re never gonna go away”
No Love is a song that portrays what it feels like to feel nothing. It’s a clear and accurate description of the damage a soul gets each time the world tears it apart. No Love, for me, will always be a solid song with a strong message.
The beauty of this song is that its message can mean differently based on who listens to it. This song used to be an expression, an articulation of the entangled emotions I have within me. But today, this song means more of a reminder. It’s a caution that each person has battles I know nothing about, and I should try not to be the one to cut the last thread that barely keeps them off the edge.
More Simple Plan Songs
Do you want to listen to this band non-stop? You can follow my Simple Plan Forever playlist on Spotify.
I hope you enjoyed this list. Do you have any underrated Simple Plan songs close to your heart you’d like to share with us? Would you like to explore my music recommendations?