All Beginning Literary Devices

In Smash Mouth’s “All Starts,” a loser recalls others doubting his competence and intelligence. Then, he talks about a sequence of random descriptions of his life; being annoyed with rules, starting something new with enthusiasm, having a hedonistic philosophy. These presumably occurred in the persona’s adolescence as he sounds immature compared to when he later encourages listeners with confidence. For example, he advises to take the “back streets” since we’ll never know that we’ll be successful if we didn’t try it. There are many vague moments in the song that are unclear whether he’s talking in first, second, third person; regardless, I believe it paints a clear picture. All in all, it’s about a man — whose future was believed to be futile — has proved his skeptics wrong by eventually becoming a “rockstar”.
The persona is saying that he wasn’t smart— that he was stupid.
“I hit the ground” is another idiom, but not well known. It usually means to start an activity or venture with excitement, which is probably what he means.
“Your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb” personifies your brain and head with intellectual ability. This indicates that though you might be smart, you can lack some common sense.
The proverb in “All that glitters is gold” contradicts Shakespeare’s quote “All that glitters is not gold”. That version means that not everything that looks valuable turns out to be so. This conveys the opposite, that everything that looks valuable, is valuable; maybe suggesting that every dream is worth pursuing.
The proverb in “Only shooting stars break the mold” is the persona telling people to be differentiate themselves from others to be successful.
There’s a hyperbole in “The ice we skate is getting pretty thin The water's getting warm so you might as well swim” as he is stating that the ice is melting so much that you can swim in