Thank U, Alanis
A line by line breakdown of a song finding a refreshing resurgence + a free indiscriminate gratitude meditation
The Chorus Is the Practice
Released in 1998, Thank U was Alanis’ first single after the massive success of Jagged Little Pill. She had traveled to India after touring for years and returned with something quieter and reflective of the transmutation that can occur when raw emotion is given new tools to help process.
The tool that she brings to us is the practice of indiscriminate gratitude.
Gratitude journals fill the shelves and have found their way into the zeitgeist in recent years as a way to help with difficult times, bring abundance, pull you out of stagnation, and as a go-to for nearly every manifestation practitioner out there.
In my early days as an energy healing practitioner, I would refer to gratitude as the lubricant of life, because there was nothing that could shift stuck energy quite like filling the mind and heart with gratitude.
It was about two years ago that I realized how standard gratitude practices were only the tip of the iceberg, and in fact, if I really wanted to shift energy, manifest, and find the flow in life, I needed to not just be grateful for what I had. I also needed to be grateful for what I had and didn’t want, for what I didn’t have yet, and even for what had nothing to do with me. Because, ultimately, it wasn’t about me at all. Gratitude is a channel within the cosmos, and the bigger your receiver, the more its benefits come into your life.
Alanis figured this out 27 years ago. The chorus of this song enacts the practice of indiscriminate gratitude. No surprise, she always was ahead of the curve. Canadians…
So let’s go through the structure of the song and how it shows the efficacy of the practice of indiscriminate gratitude. I have also included at the bottom one of my favorite meditations of indiscriminate gratitude.
The Structure of a Spiritual Shift
Here’s what I noticed when I listened again, decades after first hearing it.
1. Verse One: The Ache of Aspiration
“How ’bout getting off of these antibiotics?
How ’bout stopping eating when I’m full up?”
The first verse, and its first line, often throw people off. Is this a political statement? Is she encouraging herbalism, or Ayurveda, or preventative measures? I don’t think so. I believe that she is speaking to the difficulty that we have in curbing the excess that we experience in our culture. And also, she is giving suggestions that feel inaccessible, elusive. It is a good starting practice to see how the chorus will transform.
2. The Chorus: Indiscriminate Gratitude
“Thank you disillusionment. Thank you frailty. Thank you consequence.”
Each thank you is an invitation to reframe.
Terror – experiencing fear and facing it is a deep spiritual practice.
Disillusionment – breaks the illusions we hold.
Frailty – reminds us of our mortality.
Consequence – becomes time’s anchor.
Silence – is always sacred.
This is our practice.
3. Verse Two: The Integration Begins
“How ’bout me not blaming you for everything?
How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once?”
Now we’re in the emotional body. The chorus didn’t fix everything—but it shifted something.
This verse honors the work of forgiveness, of presence, of grief.
The tone is gentler, and we see how the shift has happened.
4. The Bridge: The Alchemy
“The moment I let go of it
was the moment I got more than I could handle.”
This bridge wrecks me every time.
Letting go doesn’t mean collapse.
It means being able to receive abundance. And sometimes, it’s the only way to receive more than your ego could have imagined.
Jump—and touch down.
Release—and be held.
The paradox in the bridge is the indication that the gratitude is not just transmuting the elusiveness in the beginning—it is opening up spiritual channels and magic.
5. The Final Verse: Responsibility and Remembrance
“How ’bout remembering your divinity?
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out?”
Here, she names what we often hide.
The masochism.
The self-abandonment.
The repression of grief.
And she calls in something eternal: your divinity. By bringing in the aspect of divinity, she signals the ability to evolve the last chorus (in true Alanis fashion) and give us the outro.
The Outro: “Oh” as Devotion
The final sounds are non-verbal. A vocal scat:
“Oh, oh, oh…”
In Taoist sound healing, “Oh” is associated with the lungs, not the heart.
In Vedic tradition, “O” is the middle sound in A-U-M—the vibration of the manifest world.
I like to think that after the last chorus, where she calls out providence, nothingness, and the other big hitters in our spiritual paths, she no longer needs words.
Why “U” and Not “You”?
“U” might stand for Universe or Universal.
Or maybe it’s a return to innocence—a childlike shorthand. Because after all, isn’t all life the aspiration to return to innocence?
What the Critics Missed
When the song was released, some critics called it indulgent or directionless. But that’s often what people say when something doesn’t fit neatly into a pop formula.
They missed that Thank U was never meant to be a song in the traditional sense.
It was—and still is—a spiritual instruction manual.
A thank-you note to the very forces we spend our lives avoiding.
“How ’bout not equating death with stopping?”
That one line is a sutra, and a koan (a spiritual riddle) all its own.
Final Reflection
Alanis once said in an interview with Rolling Stone that after India, she “stopped fighting the flow of things.”
[Source: Rolling Stone, 1999 interview on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie]
That’s what Thank U is at its core.
It’s a hymn to the flow of life, one that she had already visited in Jagged Little Pill, in You Learn, and Hand in Pocket. But in this song, she pulls no punches, and gives us a blueprint for how to find this state ourselves.
It is also a reminder that we don’t have to wait until we’re healed to be grateful.
Sometimes it’s the gratitude that heals us.
This is Songs from Beyond.
I’m Kristina Wiltsee.
How will you let gratitude change the shape of your day?
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Here it is: a meditation for Indiscriminate Gratitude.