A tour bus. Summer. No money. Everything to prove. Young & Dumb by Avril Lavigne,featuring Simple Plan isn’t a throwback — it’s a timestamp.
Released on May 9, 2025, the track finds both artists locked into the same defiant energy they came up on. It’s not a reinvention. It’s a reminder.
There’s no fake sheen here. From the first line, the song drops you straight into the blur of early 2000s pop-punk adolescence — sweaty venues, too much eyeliner, a mess of ambition and sleep deprivation.
Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan aren’t looking to reboot their past. They’ve just decided to hold it up to the light, fingerprints and all.
“2002 and I’m hangin’ on a tour bus,” Lavigne sings, not with wide-eyed wonder but with that very specific brand of memory that only gets sharper with age.
It’s less a celebration and more of a “remember when this was everything?”
Pierre Bouvier doesn’t play catch-up — he enters with the same immediacy that made I’m Just a Kid feel universal.
The trade-off between them isn’t a duet in the traditional sense. It feels more like a conversation that’s been going on for twenty years, now picking up in stereo.
“They told me ‘get a job’ but I said ‘no way,’” he sings, not as rebellion, but as fact. There’s nothing ironic here. They’re not pretending to be those kids again — they’re showing us they never really stopped being them.
Young & Dumb by Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan is a nostalgic anthem about holding onto youth, celebrating long-term friendship, and refusing to disown the chaotic energy that shaped their early careers.
The production, handled by John Feldmann, plays it tight and loud. Nothing too clean.
It nods to the past without drowning in it — an intentionally narrow lane that works precisely because they don’t try to widen it for anyone.
This was never meant to be genre-defying. It’s comfort food for people who never stopped believing mall punk could hit like gospel.
But it’s not just a song. It’s a bookmark. Released as part of the second leg of Lavigne’s Greatest Hits Tour, it also steps in as the new live show collaboration, replacing Fake as Hell — not because it needed to, but because this one means more.
That shared history between Lavigne and Simple Plan — the 2003 arena tour, the bond built over bad catering and stage dives — it’s all in there. She called it a full-circle moment. She wasn’t exaggerating.
The video skips over polish and dives into play. Set at a vintage motel, it’s filled with all the low-budget, high-chaos energy you hope still exists behind the scenes: suitcases flying, half-synced dance moves, unbothered joy. It’s not pretending to be viral. It just is what it is — and that’s exactly the point.
Young & Dumb doesn’t wink at you. It doesn’t try to make being young sound profound.
What it does — very quietly, very confidently — is remind you how much of that version of yourself you’ve carried without realising. And if it gets a little loud while doing that? Good.
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Avril Lavigne Young and Dumb Lyrics
Intro: Avril Lavigne & Pierre Bouvier
Woah, woah, woah
(Back when we were young and dumb and we knew everything)
Verse 1: Avril Lavigne
2002, and I’m hangin’ on a tour bus
Leaving my hometown, Napanee (Bye)
Rockin’ a necktie, black eyeliner
White tank top and I’m chasin’ my dreams, yeah
Pre-Chorus: Avril Lavigne
Livin’ like a rockstar
Trashin’ hotel rooms (Oops)
Let’s get stupid tattoos (Okay)
‘Cause we’ve got nothin’ to lose (Ha)
Chorus: Avril Lavigne
I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout that summer when we had each other
Back when we were young and dumb and we knew everything
We said this would last forеver, can’t get any bettеr
Like when we were young and dumb and we had everything
Post-Chorus: Avril Lavigne, Avril Lavigne & Pierre Bouvier
(Woah) These are the best nights
(Woah) Livin’ our best life
(Woah) Like when we were young and dumb and we knew everything
Verse 2: Pierre Bouvier & Avril Lavigne
We’re back again, now it’s twenty years later (Hey, boys)
Somehow it feels like nothing’s changed (Haha)
I’m just a kid, still a pop-punk skater
They told me, “Get a job,” but I said, “No way”
Pre-Chorus: Pierre Bouvier
Livin’ like a rockstar
Trashing dressing rooms (My bad)
Smashing Fender guitars (Woo)
‘Cause we got nothin’ to lose
Chorus: Avril Lavigne & Pierre Bouvier
I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout that summer when we had each other
Back when we were young and dumb and we knew everything
We said this would last forever, can’t get any better
Like when we were young and dumb and we had everything
Post-Chorus: Avril Lavigne & Pierre Bouvier
(Woah) These are the best nights
(Woah) Livin’ our best life
(Woah) Like when we were young and dumb and we knew everything
(Woah) These are the best nights
(Woah) Livin’ our best life
(Woah) Like when we were young and dumb and we knew everything
Outro: Avril Lavigne & Pierre Bouvier
I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout that summer when we had each other
Back when we were young and dumb and we knew everything