After all the years of addiction brought about by all the years of Oxycotin, after the tragedies revealed to the general populace in series like Dopestick and Pain Killer, after the years of the Sacker family making millions off of these tragedies, one of the leading modern song writers wrote a song expressing what many of the Sacker and Oxycotin victims felt and what they wanted so much in the future. I wanna get better.

The song from the 2014 Strange Desire album of Jack Antonoff’s new band The Bleachers is infused with the New Jersey sound of a Bruce Springsteen anthem that pounds away at a certain emotion or point. The feeling of addiction and the acknowledgement of this addiction in the repeated phrasing of “I wanna get better.”

Yes its a bit of punk rock but also a powerful driving beat of Antonoff’s driving bass beat always pushing forward. In the video, Antonoff, who has OCD with its fears performing, plays the part of a psychiatric counselor seeing all sort of patients for various psychiatric conditions. All trying to get better from their current state. The elephant in the room so to speak is that the counselor – who has just had his girlfriend walk out on his – is really the person trying to get better.

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At the beginning of the song, we witness the little apartment building that Antonoff lives in. It could be any apartment in LA and looks much like the one I lived in while living in Studio City in the Valley. A little girl floats in the pool and is called inside to breakfast by her mother while we see Antonoff on the second level coming out of his apartment in the process of breaking up with a girlfriend. This is crazy, Jack says, we’re not even awake yet. Come back and I’ll make you an expresso. But his girlfriend walks quickly in front of him carrying a lamp and saying no,no, no.  

He pleads with her and pleading for her to stay. But she tells him that things won’t work out, that he is too analytical. Jack, she says, if you could only examine yourself the way you examine everyone else. He asks her to come back inside but she says no and walks away.  The next scene we see Jack driving to his office with a cup of coffee that he spills in his lap just as he pulls up to his office.

The rest of the song shows his patients as Jack listens to their problems and takes notes. His words are switched so that they come out of the mouths of his patients.  

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Since the 2014 release of I Wanna Get Better, Antonoff has become one of the most successful music producers in contemporary mega pop music working with Taylor Swift on many songs and getting a batch of Emmy Awards. And, he does not have to worry about that girlfriend who walked out on him in his 2014 I Wanna Get Better video as he recently wed Andy McDowell’s daughter.

But perhaps more than anything else about the above song, there are the more than (the current) 4,300 comments on it that evidence that it powerfully touched many. I could separate these out but I’ll just list the first part of these comments below without separating them. They go on and on forever.

“I used to listen to this song when i was heavily addicted to heroin. I’m three years clean and sober and this song gives me chills. I got better.  If an artist makes you scream “I wanna get better” at the top of your lungs, that’s a good artist “I didn’t know I was broken, till I wanted to change.”  “One doesn’t simply listen to this song at a normal volume.” “This is one of the only music videos I’ve ever seen where I feel like the cinematic bits actually add to the experience.”“I used to listen to this A LOT around the time that I was coming to terms with severe depression and overcoming trauma. I struggled with everything and this song really helped me feel normal and even find humor in it. I just want to wish everyone who listens to this song to cope with something, absolute luck. I’m rooting for you. “This song means literally so much to me … Sang it to my mom when I picked her up from hospital… Had the best 3 days before she passed …” “This really should be made into a movie in some way. A therapist’s life where they struggle with their own problems, meanwhile also need to bear the weight of everyone who comes in.” “I love this song not only bc it’s catchy but it’s also lyrically really deep, and the video strikes a great balance between dark humor and serious issues.” “This song came out a few months before I was sent to a residential eating disorder treatment facility and is one of the only reasons i didn’t feel like a failure or give up on myself. Thank you Jack.” “Damn aging is so weird. I remember hearing this as a pre-teen being like ‘wow he must be living a wild party life filled with drugs, sex, and rock and roll’ but now I get it. He’s just a tired confused 20 something who has no idea what tf is going on and I feel that man.” “I’m on a binge/cycle of underappreciated music. How come I’ve never heard all this gold?” “I wanna say the third time I heard this song, it hit hard. I cried and blasted this on repeat. I finally got around to getting help. I didn’t realize that I had a few mental illnesses. I am currently doing much better then I was. This song is a reminder that music can change your life.” “Sitting outside AA 2 hours before they open at 8am and after the suicide hotline didn’t answer listening to this song because I needed to change my life is the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt. Lip syncing, smoking the remnants of a pack of cigarettes realizing I really do want to change and after almost a year living the life I know I deserve, a loving wife, a baby on the way. This song has truly changed my life in a way I never thought possible by music (I never wanted it to mean so much to me imagine being influenced by music lol) but it was and it kept me sitting there for the whole 2 hours so I can change my life for the better. And it worked! There is hope people it’s just 1 more week it’s just 1 more day from now. Trust me a random guy on the internet who had nothing and gained everything even if it feels like nothing is going your way it truly is. I only did the 1 AA meeting so this isn’t some religious thing but really truly you can do it you know you can and I know you can just hold on please.” “If anyone is going through things mentally and feels alone, just know that this will get better as long as you’re willing to fight. Even if you aren’t willing to do it for yourself. Do not give up, breathe, know that I don’t even have to know your name or where you’re from. But I love you and we’re all fighting together. We will get through this. You are strong, you are beautiful, and you will get better.”“God, I wish there was a way to like this more than once. Amazing, sad lyrics combined with a catchy uplifting beat and a music video that is actually entertaining and powerful and not just people singing in a field? Sign me the hell up.” “I loved this song as a 10 yr old because it sounded cool, not knowing what it meant, not knowing that someday in the future I would be screaming ‘I wanna get better’ into the sky with every nuance of meaning hanging from it.” “I ‘didn’t know I was lonely till I saw your face.’ I hope someday I meet someone who makes me feel like that.” 

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A few facts brought out by the film Pain Killer (as well as other books and films about this period of American history). The Sackler company manufactured pain medicines such as hydromorphone, oxycodone, fentanyl, codeine, hydrocodone and OxyContin. The Sacklers developed aggressive marketing tactics persuading doctors to prescribe OxyContin in particular.

Doctors were wooed with free trips to pain-management seminars (which were effectively all-expenses-paid vacations) and paid speaking engagements. Sales of their drugs soared, as did the number of people dying from overdoses. From 1999 to 2020, nearly 841,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, with prescription and illicit opioids responsible for 500,000 of those deaths. The Sackler family has been described as “the worst drug dealers in history” and the “most evil family in America.”

A series of lawsuits followed. In 2007, Purdue paid out one of the largest fines ever levied against a pharmaceutical firm for misleading the public about how addictive the drug OxyContin was compared to other pain medications. In response to the law suits, the company shifted its focus to abuse-deterrent formulations, but continued to market and sell opioiids as late as 2019 and continued to be involved in lawsuits around the opioid epidemic in the United States.

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Lyrics Of I Wanna Get Better

Hey, I hear the voice of a preacher from the back room
Calling my name and I follow just to find you
I trace the faith to a broken-down television and put on the weather
And I’ve trained myself to give up on the past ’cause
I frozen time between hearses and caskets
Lost control when I panicked at the acid test
I wanna get betterWhile my friends were getting high and chasing girls down parkway lines
I was losing my mind because the love, the love, the love, the love, the love
That I gave wasted on a nice face
In a blaze of fear I put a helmet on a helmet
Counting seconds through the night and got carried awaySo now I’m standing on the overpass screaming at the cars
“Hey, I wanna get better!”I didn’t know I was lonely ’til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get better
I didn’t know I was broken ’til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get betterI go up to my room and there’s girls on the ceiling
Cut out their pictures and I chase that feeling
Of an eighteen-year-old who didn’t know what loss was
Now I’m a stranger
And I miss the days of a life still permanent
Mourn the years before I got carried awaySo now I’m staring at the interstate screaming at myself
“Hey, I wanna get better!”I didn’t know I was lonely ’til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get better
I didn’t know I was broken ’til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get better’Cause I’m sleeping in the back of a taxi
I’m screaming from my bedroom window
Even if it’s gonna kill meWoke up this morning early before my family
From this dream where she was trying to show me
How a life can move from the darkness
She said to get better
So I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet
And I crash my car cause I wanna get carried away

That’s why I’m standing on the overpass screaming at myself
“Hey, I wanna get better!”I didn’t know I was lonely ’til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get better
I didn’t know I was broken ’til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better
I wanna get better

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 Meaning of the song from Bay Area Christian Church.