Avril Lavigne
Bois Lie (Acoustic, feat. MGK)

It’ll never work. That thought aggressively invaded my skull when I tried to imagine the bouncing pop-punk anthem of ‘Bois Lie’ stripped down to an acoustic tear-jerker. Nope. It will never work.

And so it begins. There’s the strumming of an acoustic guitar and a little tickle of keyboards. The first verse… well, it’s pretty good. The chorus starts pulling on those little skin pricks. Why is this working? It really shouldn’t.

Let’s get analytical about it. Often an acoustic version lets the vocals shine, but that’s not it. The vocals perform excellently, but that’s not what makes this version work. It’s the words. You can hear every word here, letting the story beam straight through the song.

You tell me what I want, what I wanna hear
Make me believe in magic, then disappear
You’ve got a sharp tongue like a razor blade
You put a knife into my back and try to write your name
So tell me, why you, you never tell the truth?

That’s the stuff. Just poetic enough but not too abstract to follow.