5 things you didn't know about Avril Lavigne

Avril Ramona Lavigne is a Canadian singer and songwriter, born on September 27, 1984. She was a significant character in the pop-punk genre, helping to shape female-driven, punk-inspired pop music in the early 2000s. She has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards over the years.

Let Go (2002), her debut album, became the 21st-century best-selling record by a Canadian artist. Popular songs like Complicated and Sk8er Boi, which demonstrated a skate-punk aesthetic, caused music journals to refer to her as the "Pop-Punk Princess or Queen."

According to a Vice December 4, 2024 article:

“The pop-rock queen is embarking on the second round of her “Greatest Hits” tour next year, with Simple Plan and Fefe Dobson as support, as well as Floridian rockers We The Kings.”

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Battle with lyme disease, and 4 other lesser known facts about Avril Lavigne

1) Avril sang a chorus in 8 languages to reach global fans

On one of her tours (Image via Instagram/@avrillavigne)

The chorus of Lavigne's song Girlfriend is sung in eight different languages.

In an article by CBC on March 9, 2007, Terry McBride, Lavigne's manager, stated during Canadian Music Week that the singer studied other languages for hours in an attempt to perfect the diverse deliveries. Lavigne is not fluent in any other language.

In addition to English, Girlfriend's chorus has been recorded in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin and Japanese for her enormous global fan base.

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2) Avril Lavigne signed her first record deal at 16

Fan-favorite "Sk8er Boi" (Image via Instagram/@avrillavigne)

Lavigne grew up mostly in Napanee, a small town of around 5,000 people, where she learned to play the guitar, wrote poetry, and socialized with the gritty kids. Some of the narrative storytelling in Let Go is influenced by the country music scene, where she first gained recognition.

After winning a radio competition in her early teens, she even shared the stage with Shania Twain. At 16, she signed with Arista Records and relocated to California.

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3) Her battle with lyme disease

In 2014, Avril Lavigne was diagnosed with lyme disease. She was 29 when she began to experience unexplained fatigue. After receiving a vindicating diagnosis, she was bedridden on antibiotics for two years.

She even wrote a song about her experience with the disease, called Head Above Water.

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4) Lavigne and the SpongeBob Squarepants relation

May 2024 tour (Image via Instagra/@avrillavigne)

Sire Records and Nick Records published The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: Music from the Movie and More, the soundtrack album for the 2004 animated film, on November 9, 2004.

It is the second album of SpongeBob SquarePants. The album opens with Avril Lavigne's SpongeBob SquarePants Theme.

She sings:

Are you ready, kids?

I said, "Are you ready?"

[Verse]

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

SpongeBob SquarePants

Absorbent and yellow and porous is he

SpongeBob SquarePants

If nautical nonsense be something you wish

SpongeBob SquarePants

Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish

SpongeBob SquarePants

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5) Avril sang the iconic song Complicated in one take

Avril at her Toronto concert (Image via Instagram/@avrillavigne)

In a February 25, 2022 Glamour interview, Avril Lavigne said:

“Complicated has a lot of meaning to me. It was a life-changing experience. I sang the song one time, in one take. [Producer Lauren Christy] was like, “Cool, you're done.” That's really rare. It was just Lauren and myself. No one else was there."

The inspiration for it, Lavigne says, came from how it really bothered her when her male and female friends would put on a face and not be true to themselves, but she didn’t have anyone specific in mind when she wrote it. As a teenager, it was more about what people are like in general.