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Home , 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot, American Idiot (musical), Billie Joe Armstrong, Dookie, East Jesus Nowhere

“Hitchin’ a riot”: The development of ’s lyrics from their early years until the present

Diplomarbeit

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Marion OBEREGGER

am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Hugo Keiper

Graz, 2011

“Rock ’n’ roll is supposed to be about rebellion. It’s supposed to be dangerous. So that’s the side that we choose. We’re not looking to makmakee everybody happy, you know.”know.”

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1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ...... 3 2. Kings – not only for a day...... 5 2.1 “Silence is the enemy” ...... 6 2.2 A way of life...... 14 3. 80 and the early years ...... 24 3.1 “Some call it slums, some call it nice”...... 24 3.2 Love, pain and rebel girls...... 30 3.3 “I never wanted to be famous …”...... 39 4. Pledging allegiance to the underworld – Green Day’s first political statement ...... 46 4.1 Starting to live (and write songs) without warning ...... 46 4.2 “Down with the moral majority …”...... 49 5. The sons of rage and love...... 54 5.1 – the big oxymoron ...... 55 5.2 From the center of the earth to the end of the world ...... 64 6. Experiencing the 21 st century breakdown ...... 70 6.1 “And where will we all go when it’s too late?” ...... 70 6.2 A matter of faith ...... 73 7. Conclusion...... 77 8. Bibliography...... 79

2 1. Introduction

“Punk rock for me was always the way I wanted to be, it expressed something the way I thought it should be expressed.” (, in Myers 2006: 23)

Green Day are the lead singer, guitarist and primary Billie Joe Armstrong, the and supporting vocalist Mike Dirnt and the and percussionist Tré Cool. Virtually all over the world, the trio is very well known for its memorable and catchy tunes as well as its (thought-)provoking, tough-minded punk rock lyrics. Due to the ’s characteristic sound and Billie Joe Armstrong’s unmistakable voice, the average listener might pay more attention to the music than to the lyrics themselves. It is, however, the combination of both that makes Green Day’s development over the years best perceivable and understandable. The band has obviously changed, and did so without losing, but rather by enhancing its representative sound of sharp drum beats, melodic acoustic , clanging electric guitars and droning bass lines. On their most recent , amazingly soft piano sequences are added to this already impressive sound repertoire, harmonizing perfectly with the lead vocalist’s distinctive voice and the message of the corresponding songs. Step by step, the Bay area trio has evolved by discovering and solidifying their convictions and ethics concerning punk rock as their music, and their way of expressing and sharing their beliefs with their audience by the powerful means of their lyrics. In an issue of Guitar Player Billie Joe Armstrong was asked how he finds “the balance between evolving Green Day’s sound and giving [their] hardcore fans what they want” (Thompson 2009: 66). The answer was the following:

Ultimately we want to connect to people, whether it’s to a young kid listening on headphones in his room or to an entire arena. In order to do that you just have to be as honest with yourself as you possibly can. You have to challenge yourself to test your own vulnerabilities as a songwriter, and not get tempted into doing whatever is popular at the moment. Success is like a drug, and what people often don’t understand when they first get it is that they’re just being themselves. And by success I mean making great .

A lot of people feel connected to and even represented by Green Day’s music, but what really makes the audience identify with the band are the lyrics. I have known Green Day since I was a teenager. When I first listened to “Minority”, I immediately fell in love with this audacious tune and its encouraging lyrics. The courage and comfort of Green Day’s words have

3 accompanied and fascinated me ever since and were therefore the inspiration to focus on the band’s lyrical work in this paper. In my thesis, I will systematically investigate the development and progressiveness of Green Day’s lyrics. I will start by providing an overview of the most basic concerns in the lyrics together with an outline of where the band members came from, what punk rock means to them, and how they became who they are now as a band. In addition, I will demonstrate the way Green Day’s words often reflect the band members’ lives and experiences. Moreover, I will take a closer look at the importance of lyrics of love (already in the band’s early years) and describe to which extent the trio’s songs are influenced and inspired by women. What many people do not know is that the band had a hard time coping with their early success, because of which I will also put a special focus on darker songs that stem from the post- period so to speak. Of course, it will be indispensible to examine Green Day’s first overtly political statement as well as the band’s immense, and (paradoxically) widely unexpected, progression since then. My lyrical analysis will be loosely based on the band’s chronological development and discography in order to provide a meaningful background for my investigation. The overall purpose of this paper is to illustrate the increasing literary potential of Green Day’s song lyrics as well as the band’s remarkable versatility in this respect, both of which the three suburban punks from have brought to perfection over the years – a fact that is as self-evident as it is undeniable.

4 2. Kings – not only for a day

“Green Day […] have rewritten the rules of rock at least twice in a single decade. When they first exploded onto the scene, they rewrote the rule that said punk was dead. And when they made their monumental comeback with the rallying cry ‘American Idiot’, they rewrote the rule that said Green Day was dead.” (Spitz 2006: back cover)

Marc Spitz, music journalist (e.g. at Spin magazine) and author of the spellbinding Green Day biography Nobody Likes You. Inside the turbulent life, times, and music of Green Day , was far sighted and visionary enough in his book never to rule out the possibility of the band rewriting the rules and the history of punk rock yet again, even after American Idiot . Given the remarkable success of Green Day’s most recent studio album 21 st Century Breakdown , his vision has proved right. Contrary to the title of one of their songs, “King for a Day”, Green Day are certainly kings; just not only for a day. At a time when bands seem to have the average lifespan of – literally – a dayfly, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool look back at a career of over 20 years, choosing to be anything but silent. Instead of settling for the incredible success they have already gained, Green Day keep coming back to the scene louder, stronger and insanely ambitious. After many years of ups and downs, hard work and imperturbable commitment to their music, the band now more than ever holds the “position as the undisputed kings of punk…” (Kelham 2009: 55).

Especially with the release of their last two albums, American Idiot (2004) and 21 st Century Breakdown (2009), Green Day have shown admirable confidence in themselves and in their political as well as musical statements. However, there is proof that this has not always been the case. Doubtlessly, the band consists of three enormously talented musicians who have experienced rough times (be it concerning their families or their lives as band members) and still – or therefore – have never lost their conviction and strength to keep going. But even in their case, having always been dedicated punk rockers and libertines, it has not always been easy to actually define what punk rock means for them. In this regard, Spitz (2006: xiv-xv) writes:

5 Eight years ago [1998], a reporter […] asked Billie Joe Armstrong […] what punk rock was. Armstrong compared the act of describing punk rock with the act of “describing a smell.” It is intangible, vague, haunting, and even maddening. When someone asked him the same question in 2004, he did not hesitate: “I don’t question it anymore. It’s me. It embodies me.”

There might have been a certain insecurity at a time when the band suddenly experienced international success and its members were literally swept off their feet. But whatever it was that caused this insecurity and doubts, it is definitely long gone now.

2.1 “Silence is the enemy”

Green Day’s dedication to make great music and the desire to make their voice heard was definitely what kept the band together over the years. What can therefore be called the formative statement of the band’s career, and probably the most recurring theme in their lyrics, is: ‘Think for yourself, be your own person and do not be afraid to tell everyone and make your voice heard.’ Being silent was never an option for Green Day, be it concerning their general (even though not willful) anti-establishment attitude or their exuberant confidence in doing what they think is right. The most important aspect, however, seems to be that it is not enough to say that something is wrong but to be proactive and get involved in solving the problem. The lyrics of “Know your Enemy”, the first single from Green Day’s latest album 21 st Century Breakdown , illustrate this belief very well: “Revolt against the honor to obey / Overthrow the effigy / The vast majority / Burning down the foreman of control / Silence is the enemy / Against your urgency / So rally up the demons of your soul / […] / Silence is the enemy / So gimme gimme revolution”. The rallying cry “Know your Enemy” indicates that is it too easy to be indifferent, i.e. that apathy is wrong. The line “Silence is the enemy” emphasizes this even more. It is important to know the enemy, which could either be a part of one’s personality (an aspect which is being dealt with in the second half of the album as well as in the last chapter of this thesis) or something that is happening in one’s environment. Concerning the first one of these two aspects, an interesting fact to mention is that the CD cover of “Know your Enemy” shows a protester with a burning poster in hand on which is written “Your photo here”.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool do not only get involved by explicitly stating their opinion on politicians, like they did in the case of George W. Bush and their album

6 American Idiot , but also take action by supporting institutions like NRDC (the National Resources Defense Council). Together with , Green Day covered the song “” in 2006 (originally recorded by Skids, a Scottish punk , in 1978) as a charity song, mainly for , a charitable organization co-founded by U2’s . On the cover of the single it says: “Music Rising will receive all income from the sale of this single […]. All funds raised by Music Rising will be used to work with musicians affected by [2005] in and the Gulf region”. The lyrics of this song doubtlessly prove its relevance for this matter: “A drowning sorrow floods the deepest grief / How long now? / ‘Til a weather change condemns belief / How long now?” The song lyrics were only slightly altered. For instance, at the beginning of the song, the first four lines of “House of the Rising Sun” were added: “There is a house in New Orleans / They call the Rising Sun / And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy / And God I know I'm one”. In this case there is not only the connection with New Orleans, Louisiana, a city which suffered great material damage and the loss of about 1800 human lives because of Hurricane Katrina. The words “ruin” and “poor” also display a thematic link and, above all, these four lines connect perfectly to the rest of the song, with regards to content (for example “poor boy”, which belongs to “House of the Rising Sun”, is closely followed by “I cried to my daddy on the telephone”, which already belongs to “The Saints Are Coming”) as well as concerning the melody. In addition to “The Saints Are Coming” as a charitable song, the members of Green Day also helped on-site in the rebuilding of people’s homes – and this is only one of the many examples of the band’s social commitment.

Concerning their lyrics, Green Day definitely were not always a political and socially involved band. At the latest since George W. Bush’s second presidential term, however, they obviously felt the need and urge to make their boldest and first explicitly political statements ever. The album American Idiot and especially the eponymous song hits the listener like an explosion. It is energetic and vibrating, making the band’s anger and frustration about what was happening in their country palpable in every note and word:

Don’t wanna be an American Idiot / Don’t want a nation under the new mania / And can you hear the sound of hysteria? / The subliminal mind fuck America / […] / Maybe I’m the faggot America / I’m not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda! / And sing along to the age of paranoia.

7 Green Day have always been authentic and – in this (very best) sense of the word – have always stayed true to themselves. In the band’s early years this included songs about a certain lost feeling and loss of perspective, which had to do with the fact that all three members of the band grew up in Californian suburbs. When their first major label album Dookie was released in 1994, the Green Day trio was in their early twenties and the influence of their origins on their music and lyrics more than overt: “I got no motivation / Where is my motivation / No time for motivation / Smoking my inspiration / […] / When ’s lost its fun / You’re fucking breaking” (from the song “Longview” on the album Dookie ). The melody of the song mirrors both gnawing boredom and the resulting angriness when you are not able to fight it. The album Warning (2000), as the title subliminally suggests, already focused more on social and political criticism. In the song “Warning” we hear the following lines: “Caution: police line: you better not cross / Is the cop or am I the one who’s really dangerous? / Sanitation, Expiration date, Question Everything? / Or shut up and be the victim of authority / Warning: Live without warning”. In the case of “Fashion Victim”, the title summarizes the song’s content to the point: “So when you’re dancing through your wardrobe / Do the anorex – a go-go / Cloaked with style / For pedophiles as the credit card explodes / You auctioned off your life / For the ‘most’ expensive price / Going … / Going twice … / It’s gone / What’s in a name?” In addition to questioning established views in society (for example dress codes), there is also an increasing criticism of authority, as we have seen in the case of “Warning”. ‘Victim’, for instance, is a recurring word. It is probably the song “Minority”, one of the band’s all-time classics, that has the most explicit lyrics in this respect: “I want to be the minority / I don’t need your authority / Down with the moral majority / ‘Cause I want to be the minority / […] / Stepped out of the line / Like a sheep runs from the herd / Marching out of time / To beat now / The only way I know”. More than fifteen years after Dookie and more than nine years after Warning , Green Day’s lyrics are as explicit as ever (like in the above-mentioned song “American Idiot”); only the themes have become more universal, in a manner of speaking. General disillusionment (e.g. teenage frustration and the anxiety about growing up, unfulfilled love, &c.) at least partially had to make room for political criticism, starting already with the song “Minority” on Warning, and for the uncompromising aversion to the hypocrisy of institutionalized religion, predominantly on the band’s last two (concept!) albums American Idiot and 21 st Century Breakdown .

8 As far back as Dookie, Armstrong talked publicly about political issues, but not until 2000's […] Minority did he manage to wrangle them into a song. “I didn't think I had the knowledge about it yet,” he says. “And I didn't think I had the courage.” With Warning, he says, “I wanted to start saying things in songs that I could be really proud of – that wasn't just songs about masturbation.” (Lynskey 2009: 50)

When announcing the cover of the Q magazine issue that has just been cited on the corresponding website, an interesting question was added to the quoted statement by Green Day’s front man: “So says Billie Joe Armstrong as the band return with more politically charged songs. But what is left for them to rail against in the post-Bush world?” (Qthemusic.com 2009). The answer to this question will, among other things, be dealt with in the last chapter of this thesis. For now, suffice it to say that even if, or maybe because, Green Day have evolved into a political band, they are as active and loud as ever – or even louder and bolder. For instance, the lyrics of the song “American Eulogy”, in addition to the already highly sharp wording of its title, are a radical slap in the face of modern society. The 21 st Century Breakdown song consists of two parts, both of which also have self-explanatory titles: “A. Mass hysteria” and “B. Modern World”. The first deals with the dangers of mass hysteria and leaves no doubt about the fact that America is not yet healed from or immune against it just because there is a new president in office. The media still have considerable power over the way people think – something that should not be underestimated. Everybody has to be aware of this danger and not see as the panacea against it.

Mass hysteria / Red alert is the color of panic / Elevated to the point of static / Beating into the hearts of the fanatics / And the neighborhood’s a loaded gun / […] / Mass confusion is all the new rage / And it’s creating a feeding ground / For the bottom- feeders of hysteria / […] / Mayday this is not a test! / As the neighborhood burns / America is falling / Vigilantes warning ya / Calling Christian and Gloria.

The song smoothly passes into its second part which, more generally, depicts the deficits of the modern world. At the end of the song the chorus of the first part, which is plainly and effectively “Mass hysteria” repeated, joins in with the chorus of the second part, which is “I don’t want to live in the modern world”. Thus, the two parts of the song melt into each other (like in a canon) and become one, sounding inseparable and chaotic at the same time:

I want to take a ride to the great divide / Beyond the ‘up-to-date’ / And the neo- gentrified / […] / I can hear the sound of a beating heart / That bleeds beyond a system

9 that is falling apart / With money to burn on a minimum wage / Well I don’t give a shit about the modern age / I don’t want to live in the modern world / Mass hysteria.

Green Day’s lyrics leave hardly any doubt about the way they think or feel and that they would never hesitate to say it out loud. Their innate manner of speaking, or rather their minds is not in a roundabout way, but can be best compared to a frontal attack. Lines like “Well I don’t give a shit about the modern age” are the best proof of that.

As several examples throughout this paper will illustrate, the majority of Green Day’s songs is equally general and personal concerning content. This is as well a fact that will prove self- evident in the course of analyzing the band’s lyrics as it is the key to understanding and being able to make sense of them. Mostly, one song is both at the same time. In this respect, ‘general’ means, for instance, political issues or very universal concerns like love, relationships and the struggle of trying to come to terms with one’s own life. However, there always seems to be some highly personal notion to the songs, the word ‘personal’ meaning that a song could be based on personal beliefs or inspired by individual experiences of the band members. It is probably the combination of both, the universal character of songs and the intimacy that is created through the lyrics at the same time, which enables so many people to identify with what Green Day’s songs are meant to express. Although the band has such a big audience, they apparently manage to reach every single one of their listeners by creating a feeling of being understood, by suggesting that there are many other people out there who might think and feel the same way. The fact that Green Day’s music attracts such a great number of people all over the world does, of course, have a number of good reasons. One of them could be that there is quite a lot of room for interpretation concerning the meaning of the lyrics and songs in general. Critics or even fans tend to over-interpret songs and lyrics all too often. For example, when being asked about the part of the lyrics of “21 st Century Breakdown” that says “I never made it as a ”, that is, if that was his continuation of the song “Working Class Hero” by (that Green Day excellently covered in 2007 1), Armstrong replied: “I mostly just liked the line” (Baltin 2009). About the same song he notes that “it’s about the frustration that a lot of people have over the dying of the American dream, about growing up thinking you’re gonna end up somewhere different than where you actually are. It’s definitely a more personal song, but it’s more general, too” (Burgess 2009: 86). Most

1 The cover was Green Day’s contribution to the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur , and reached remarkable chart positions.

10 likely, all of this is what the above-mentioned line really expresses for him. What Armstrong refers to in this interview is the personal background of the song, which shall be discussed later on, and the fact that it is general, too, because there are probably many people who have experienced the same or had to deal with similar situations. Maybe someone just feels that the song subliminally expresses something they can relate to without actually knowing why this is the case. People always have different associations with songs. What sounds encouraging to one person can appear sad to the other, &c. This is not supposed to mean that Green Day leave their lyrics to chance or that these are just a random accumulation of words and phrases. The exact opposite is the case. However, the band definitely seems to be conscious of their lyrics being interpreted in many different ways and probably left or constructed a larger room for interpretations on purpose. Billie Joe Armstrong admits: “I love double-meaning, but I think that’s why it sometimes takes me a long time to write: It’s like you’re searching for things that make it the big oxymoron” (ibid.). Even though when talking about consciously creating an oxymoron, Green Day is far from wanting to be exclusive concerning possible interpretations of their songs or regarding their music in general. It is about saying that it could be this way or that way, or even both, but that there is no definite right or wrong – and how could this idea be better expressed than by means of oxymora. The intrinsic ‘as-well-as’ idea of an oxymoron definitely contributes to the fact that the music and lyrics are accessible for an even larger audience. In this context, it becomes clear that ‘general’ and ‘personal’ might be, but are not necessarily two contradictory features. However, it would be wrong to assume that Green Day generally intend to please their listeners or to make their songs easily accessible for everyone. In their career they have never taken the easy way and were always far away from preaching to the choir – especially when releasing their groundbreaking album and punk American Idiot . Nobody could have thought that they would be able to top this album’s massive success. Probably not even Green Day themselves initially planned on doing so. Yet, five years later in December 2008, they announced a power-pop album (cf. NME.com / First for music news 2008). The band’s second and next master piece 21 st Century Breakdown was released in May 2009. Now, with both albums continuing to be immensely successful, hardly anyone mentions the risk Green Day took when putting them on the market. Jason Freese, a multi- instrumentalist who has been touring with the band since American Idiot , said the following about the first time he heard demos from this album and especially about the song “”: “I’d never heard anything like that in my life. I remember the first thing hitting my

11 head was, ‘This is either gonna be the biggest thing ever or it’s gonna go over everybody’s head.’ You know what I mean? It was like, there was no middle ground” (Spitz 2006: 167). There actually did not have to be any. What Green Day had created was huge and definitely “the best work of their careers” (ibid.: 166) – until there was a certain breakdown. As excited and euphoric listeners and critics might be now, there was never any guarantee off success. The great outcome was not at all foreseeable – neither for American Idiot , nor for 21 st Century Breakdown . Like Jason Freese said, it was either going to be grandiose or the exact opposite, and it goes beyond doubt that the former has turned out to be true. Taking this risk, however, is the best proof for the fact that Green Day obviously want to make great music without the intention of meeting and satisfying their audience’s expectations. In fact, when aiming for the big oxymoron, the band might even want to challenge their audience. It is, for example, not unthinkable that there are lots of religious people who love Green Day’s music. Still, there are certainly (now more than ever) many songs, or better lyrics, they would not be able to agree with. When talking about the censorious song “” and organized religion Armstrong says,

It’s something that’s very taboo, you know; it’s not gonna win us any popularity points with certain people, and because Green Day have such a mass audience, I think it’s gonna test a lot of people. People are gonna be like, ‘Aw, fuck – this is a good song, but I don’t know if I can agree with what it’s saying.’ (Burgess 2009: 86)

On the one hand, music and especially lyrics are supposed to be provoking, thought- provoking and challenging. Sometimes, on the other hand, we like a song and cannot even say why – whether it is the lyrics that move us or a certain sound arrangement or melody. Green Day are a highly curious phenomenon, that is, fascinating beyond comparison for fans and critics alike. Despite the band’s very straightforward and direct lyrics, they never make people feel like they would be forcing their opinion on them. The audience is always granted the freedom of not agreeing with the message of a song but can enjoy the music nonetheless. Green Day want to for sure, and they are trying to do it without patronizing people but rather by providing ‘food for thought’, which is undoubtedly one of the best reasons for their extraordinary success. They encourage their audience to perpetuate their individuality and to have an opinion on their own without being afraid of being the minority. It would be wrong not to question certain things that have (supposedly) already been thought through for them.

12 The band, for instance, were probably supposed to be a phenomenon of the nineties. However, they did not choose to be satisfied and content with the work they had already done – not after Dookie and even less after American Idiot .

Unable, initially, to make any sense of this new landscape, the band eventually responded to the popularity of one epic, insanely ambitious operatic album by making another. Did that ever strike them as overambitious, even hubristic? “Maybe more musicians should do that,” Armstrong counters. “You know, how come there are fewer and fewer rock stars, people that a fan can really get into? […] There needs to be more ambition about being a musician, about what it means to be creating music, about making the record of your dreams.” (Cairns 2009)

Of course, it is one thing to want to be ambitious and make a great album. The other is to actually do it. In particular with their last two albums Green Day were able to take the extra step that was necessary to effectively realize their ambition. This seems to work for them because they have always been honest with themselves and managed to stick to their principles but at the same time kept trying out new things and influences in music that could work for them. It is anything but easy to stay yourself when trying to be innovative, but if it works – as Green Day have proved – the result is without equal. “Ultimately we want to connect to people”, says Armstrong and adds that “In order to do that you just have to be as honest with yourself as you possibly can” (Thompson 2009: 66).

Given Green Day’s social and political commitment and their unbreakable towards music, it makes sense to take a closer look at their roots. The next subchapter will deal with the question of how this marvelous band came to exist. Theirs was a rather stony road, but it was definitely the right way for them. “After all,” claims Spitz (2006: xi), “they were supposed to be outsiders by nature and by the code of ethics they’d adhered to and had also been haunted by since their teens: punk rock.” Curiously enough, Green Day had to deal with quite a lot of rejection from their own scene at the beginning of their career and hence felt alienated from it at some point. Nevertheless, the band followed their dream of making great records and did not even hesitate to declare themselves outsiders, neither when they were still at school, nor when they decided to sign at a major label, even if that meant a separation from their hardcore fans and initial supporters who wanted to remain exclusive and actually felt betrayed because they did, in short, not want others to like the same music as they did. The Bay area punk trio had anything but the best preconditions for such a long and successful career. It is all the more fascinating to observe how they succeeded by believing in

13 themselves and their dream in defiance of all prophecies of doom. They are the best example that certain adversities and contradictions in life are not automatically bad but can be enriching and even an essential part of one’s life. “[…] they also had this thing called punk rock, and it was about to change the way they saw the world” (Spitz 2006: 19).

2.2 A punk rock way of life

It all started in a small town called Rodeo, California, where Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Ryan Pritchard (aka Mike Dirnt) grew up. Being a dozy suburb, “the only source of true peril in Rodeo may be breathing. ‘I went to elementary school [by the refineries],’ Armstrong recalled […]. ‘They used to send kids home all the time for headaches’” (Spitz 2006: 3). Apart from the air pollution and danger caused by the refineries, which children might not be as aware of as adults anyways, Rodeo “was as fulfilling a place as any for a child to grow up” (ibid.: 4). The town’s size, the fact that things had remained unchanged for a very long time, and the resulting restraints for a person living there would (of course) primarily matter to a grown-up. Especially Armstrong would feel the need to leave his home town behind some day. Even if Armstrong and Pritchard grew up under adverse conditions, given for instance the limited space in their homes and the fact that Pritchard was raised by foster parents due to the drug addiction of his birthmother, their childhood was still largely untroubled and their families caring. Armstrong’s parents, his mother Ollie and his father Andy, were very fond of music. They regularly took their children to Fiatarone’s, the local music shop. Even as a child Billie Joe Armstrong had a lot of charisma and an apparent talent for being an entertainer and showman (cf. ibid.). He was initially signed up for piano lessons by his mother, but the Fiatarones apparently had a feeling that the boy could sing, too. To cut a long story short, they took him to in Berkley to make his first record – at the age of five.

Armstrong obviously did not know it at the time, but he would record Dookie in that very building sixteen years later. […] [His] “debut” single, a vinyl 45 with a print run of only 800 copies, was a pleasingly bouncy bit of sunshine pop called “Look for Love.” Armstrong’s adenoidal tone reminds the listener of a young Donnie Osmond: not exactly soulful but certainly dead on pitch. (ibid.: 7)

Billie Joe’s talent was furthered by friends (e.g. the Fiatarones) and family from his earliest childhood onward. He got his first guitar from his parents when he was seven. Unfortunately,

14 it was a tragedy that made him get deeper and deeper into music. In 1982, ten-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong lost his father due to cancer. It was also the point when he started creating his own music, which helped him deal with the loss and desperation. That his father’s death was a dramatic experience that Armstrong still has to cope with more than twenty years later, can be seen in the lyrics of “Wake me up when September Ends” on the album American Idiot . They tell us about the recurring pain – September being the month when Andy Armstrong died – but also mention that it is a part of becoming who we are in life, i.e. part of someone’s personality. The lyrics also indicate that “the innocent can never last”, probably referring to the fact that no one can be innocent, a child, forever but that we all eventually have to grow up – in a positive as well as in a negative way. In addition, the instrumental part of the song makes the obvious hurt and anger frighteningly palpable:

Here comes the rain again / Falling from the stars / Drenched in my pain again / Becoming who we are / As my memory rests / But never forgets what I lost / Wake me up when September ends / […] / Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends / Like my father’s come to pass / Twenty years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September ends.

“Wake me up when September Ends” is a highly personal and deeply touching song, not only for those who have experienced the loss of a beloved person themselves. The guitar lessons Billie Joe took with the local guitar teacher , “another father figure after the death of Andy” (ibid.: 11), were as much an education as they were a therapy for him. Armstrong had a strong relationship with Cole and he also loved his teacher’s guitar for its sound and called it “Blue” because of its color. “Noticing how happy and alive the lessons with Cole made the still-grieving boy feel, Ollie made arrangements to purchase ‘Blue’ from Cole as an early Christmas gift” (ibid.: 12). His mother somehow managed to scrape the money together and her “investment has since paid off, of course. ‘Blue’ has appeared on every Green Day record and has been repaired and restored an incalculable number of times” (ibid.). Although not exclusively of course, Armstrong still uses the guitar at concerts, too. (The provided picture shows him and “Blue” at a Green Day concert in Zurich on November 8 th , 2009. ©Marion Oberegger) When thinking of Billie Joe and his blue Fernandes Stratocaster, one cannot help but smile at the

15 contrast to so many other musicians, who should be supposed to love their instruments but, in fact, smash their equipment on a regular basis. When taking a closer look, the guitar might have a certain air of nostalgia to it. However, thanks to its owner’s affection, “Blue” is still ready to rock. Meeting Michael Ryan Pritchard would be another kind of therapy for Armstrong. The two boys got to know each other at Carquinez Middle School. They made each other laugh and bonded immediately over music (cf. ibid). “Even more than any empathetic bond [they] are connected in a way that seems oddly cosmic, as if they were two halves of one person” (ibid.: 13). Billie taught Mike how to play the guitar and they spent every possible second practicing. By eleventh grade, they had formed a band with their best friends Jason Relva and Sean Hughes and called themselves Sweet Children. The name was taken from one of Billie’s early compositions. He was also the one who served as an actual teacher for the others (not only for Dirnt) concerning the handling of their instruments. They had their band and, above all, their music –

[…] this thing called punk rock […]. To be a punk was to declare yourself an outsider. Pritchard and Armstrong certainly felt as much at Pinole [High School]. Happily, there were others who shared these feelings. You could be an outsider with real back-up. “There was a core group of people that I found felt the same way (that I did),” Armstrong says. “We were the suburban punks.” (ibid.: 19)

The boys were discovering a new culture which was actually leading them away from the borders of their hometown. “And in the winter of 1987, that meant Berkley” (ibid.: 20). It was in the same year that the band Sweet Children was formed. It was also the year when the music club , named after its address, opened its gates to the (punk) public in ’s Bay Area. This location would soon be the home of the city’s emerging punk scene, including Sweet Children, and would also considerably influence the band in their formative years. The non-hierarchical club was a community where the members of the band felt an “excitement and sense of belonging” (ibid.: 37). It was the place where they could be themselves and listen to their favorite music. However, as far as playing at Gilman as a band was concerned, Sweet Children were “dismissed […] as simply ‘not punk enough’” (ibid.: 42). A band that was punk enough and one of the most popular acts at Gilman was Isocracy. Its drummer John Kiffmeyer did not only support Sweet Children but made them a professional, live performing and, ultimately, recording band – not only by becoming their first drummer. He also became

16 the band’s manager, so to speak, and therefore considered himself its leader. He was four years older than the other band members who were all about fifteen years old at that time. What amazed people most about Sweet Children was not their age but the fact that they could actually play their instruments and that they sang harmonically. Kiffmeyer taught them more about business and punk ethics than about making music as such (cf. ibid.: 45). Speaking of business, what matters is that he actually managed to get Sweet Children into Gilman – as a performing band. He also arranged various performances at house parties. The positive reactions to their first real gigs encouraged Armstrong to drop out of school and focus entirely on his band. “Going into Gilman […] I felt like I was reborn. My education started officially,” (Lynskey 2009: 50) says Billie Joe Armstrong in an interview with Q magazine. Fortunately, he was already soon aware of the band’s and of his own potential.

“I’m sort of a self-educated person,” Armstrong says. “The only thing I really wanted to do was live up to our potential, and that was it. We suddenly had this band that musically became pretty powerful, and we made a big noise. We just wanted to see where it could take us.” (Spitz 2006: 46-47)

At a time when Sweet Children were ‘only’ a trio, including Armstrong, Dirnt 2 and Kiffmeyer, they had a fateful encounter (in the most positive sense) at one of the many house parties they performed at. They met Lawrence Livermore who would be an important supporter and friend for them, being also the label boss they would first make a record with. It was also through , Livermore’s label, that Armstrong and Dirnt first met their future fellow band member and drummer-to-be Tré Cool, who played in Livermore’s punk band back then. Sweet Children were maturing every single day and felt that they needed a new name to match their development. It was on May 28 th 1989 that Green Day played their first show as Green Day. “Sweet Children had grown up, and a new and more powerful incarnation was about to take over” (ibid.: 62). It was also Green Day who delivered their first EP 39/Smooth for Lookout Records. The new name was “a signal to all on the scene that they were older. And very, very stoned” (ibid.: 64). Like Sweet Children it was taken from one of Billie Joe Armstrong’s songs. To have a green day is Bay area slang for a day spent smoking pot, which is exactly the content of this song: “A small cloud has fallen / The white mist hits the ground /

2 When Mike Dirnt switched to bass it was also the time when he acquired his stage name by constantly practicing with this new instrument and producing, without amps, a very peculiar sound: dirnt , dirnt , dirnt , … (cf. Spitz 2006: 50).

17 My lungs comfort me with joy / […] / My eyes itch of burning red / […] / Looks like I found something new”. In addition to their first full-length EP 39/Smooth (1989), Green Day also recorded the EPs “1000 Hours” (1989) and “” (1990) for Lookout, which should later, that is in 1991, constitute the compilation 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours . “By 1990, Green Day’s full-length debut 39/Smooth received acclaim both locally and, with Lookout’s ever- increasing reach, nationally” (ibid.: 66). Therefore, right after Mike had graduated, the band embarked on their first (van) tour in the same year. Former band member Sean Hughes served as a roadie. Kiffmeyer was still not only the band’s drummer but also their quasi-manager who arranged their gigs. After they had returned – the tour being a great success and of immense personal value, at least for Armstrong and Dirnt – John Kiffmeyer made plans to leave the band and to attend college. Knowing that Frank Edwin Wright III. (aka Tré Cool 3) was by far the best drummer around, he asked him to play a show together,

and it just sort of naturally evolved from there. John played a couple more shows with them […], but the band wanted to play all the time, and, to be quite blunt, Tré was quite simply a far better drummer. […] when [he] joined the band, bam – they just took off. They were that much better. (ibid.: 71)

Tré Cool was like the missing piece of the puzzle, the one ingredient that makes something perfect when you add it and that leaves it incomplete if you take it away. It might have been his skills as a drummer or the fact that he was the same age as Armstrong and Dirnt (and as big a ‘pothead’ as they were), but the almost magical connection and “‘stage’ chemistry” (ibid.: 14) between the members of Green Day is definitely something you cannot really put your finger on. Of course, Kiffmeyer had done a lot for the band, but this episode of their history was now over. “I think artistically and musically, Billie Joe was always the band’s leader […]. And there was always a real understanding that the music came from him,” (ibid.: 73) says Chris Appelgren, the current president and owner of Lookout Records. The music kept coming and the band kept improving. In 1991 they started recording their next album, the first one with Tré. Kerplunk! was released in early 1992 and sold ten thousand copies only on the first day, which was little short of a miracle at that time. Their formula of success was equally the reason why Green Day were banned from Gilman only one year later: They favored “‘melody over speed metal aggression and lyrics of love and

3 He was christened Tré Cool by . “‘Tre’, a common nickname for someone named with a ‘III’ is pronounced like ‘tres,’ the French word for ‘very’” ( The Green Day Authority 2010). The ‘surname’ Cool in connection with this extremely confident and energetic drummer prodigy does not require further explanation.

18 confusion over explosive revolutionary tracks,’ College Music Journal ( CMJ ) wrote” (ibid.: 76). Matt Pinfield, a college radio DJ recalls that “it had such a pop element to it. They represented a complete turn in punk from the hard-core to the pop-informed ,” (ibid.: 77; my emphasis) which exceedingly set them apart from other (Gilman) bands. It was not only Green Day’s relatively young age (in 1991 they were all still teenagers) but also Billie Joe’s love – but still punk rock – songs that even won Gilman a new audience, namely teenage girls (cf. ibid.: 74) who were obviously not only interested in the music at Gilman but also in the boys. The two best examples for love songs on Kerplunk! are “2000 Light Years Away” and “80”, the first one with utmost probability and the second one obviously written by Armstrong for and about his future wife Adrienne Nesser, with whom he was having a long- distance relationship at that time: “I hold my breath and close my eyes and / Dream about her / ‘Cause she’s 2000 light years away / […] / I can’t see her, but in the distance / I hear some laughter / We laugh together”. In “80” (the title is an allusion to Armstrong’s nickname for Adrienne, ‘Aidy’) the words are less lyrical and longing. The song rather tells the listeners about the confusing and also frustrating nature of love, and can definitely be called autobiographical. Armstrong sings about going crazy and taking drugs (“anxiety has got me strung out”), but although the lyrics suggest that a boy – basically Armstrong himself – is about to lose his mind because of a girl, i.e. because of being so in love with her, at the end of the song he even seems to enjoy the imminent feeling of insanity because he thinks that he is already “too far gone” – maybe just far enough from the real world – that he wants the girl, 80, to keep taking him away. Basically, the message of this song seems to be that loving someone can be maddening, but that this might at the same time be a proof of the fact that this love is true:

Everything she does questions my mental health / It makes me lose control / I just can’t trust myself[4] / […] / Anxiety has got me strung out and frustrated / So I lose my head or I it up against / […] / I do not mind if this goes on / ‘Cause now it seems I’m too far gone / I must admit that I enjoy myself / 80 please keep taking me away.

In addition to lyrics of love, also ones of unfulfilled love can be found on the same album, for instance in the case of a song with the catchy title “One for the Razorbacks”: “Juliet’s trying to find out what she wants, but she don’t know / Experience has got her down / Look this direction, I know it’s not perfection, it’s just me… / I want to bring you up again now”. At

4 When Armstrong first sings this part of the chorus, he uses the words “I wanna hurt myself”, which are not featured in the lyrics reprinted in the CD’s booklet.

19 first sight, the song might even be called a sweet love story in which a boy tries to make a girl happy by being there for her because she is “crying ‘cause now she’s realizing love can be / Filled with pain and distrust”. However, the title of the song suggests that it is – on a deeper level – about people hurting others so badly that it is almost impossible for them to trust anyone ever again or, particularly, to be happy again (with someone else).

In many ways, Kerplunk! meant a considerable progression, so that what had to follow inevitably was another tour to support this album. This time, it should even take them to Europe. The band members shared new experiences and explored parts of the world their friends and family had never seen before, and some of them probably never would. The tour was as exciting as it was scary, because even though it created an even stronger bond between them, Green Day “felt increasingly alone and overwhelmed. […] ‘We all saw the same new things and had the same new experiences,’ Cool agreed. ‘We shared stuff together. It was a ground-shattering, life-changing tour’” (ibid.: 78). By then it was an open secret that the three Bay area punks had what it takes to become an even bigger rock band than they already were within their scene. Without any doubt, Green Day were meant to be big. Other bands often lack the ultimate determination to take the necessary and often difficult und uncomfortable steps to move themselves to the next level and – more importantly – to stay among the very best (at least for a longer period of time), where the air is extremely thin. It is a hard way to the top, but Green Day were more than willing to go it – although “they didn’t really feel like they had changed at all – and they really hadn’t as people or musicians – they’d always wanted to grow and go to the next level” (ibid.: 78-79). In 1993, the next level for them was signing to a major label. Of course, there were many skeptics but the boys were decided to do what they thought was the right thing for them. It was also the first time they were represented by an actual management team. Although people repeatedly told them that if they failed, it wouldn’t be possible for them to come home again – meaning not the least Gilman – the ball was already set rolling. When having a talk on the matter with Appelgren, Billie Joe Armstrong said the following: “We feel like this is our opportunity. It’s what we’ve been working toward. We believe in ourselves, and we’re gonna do this” (ibid.: 80). On September 24 th , 1993, Green Day played their last show at 924 Gilman Street and “the band had no idea […] that they would never be formally invited back” (ibid.). The banishment from Gilman hurt the band badly because the club had become their home in so many ways. Still, they decided to follow their dream which proved right after all.

20 Even though they knew this and felt confident, they couldn’t help but feel at least a little bit guilty, too. It was not only Gilman’s “no-rock-stars policy” (ibid.: 87) that created a stir around Green Day signing to a major label, but the punk scene in general (including magazines, &c.) that wanted to be exclusive and anti-mainstream more than anything else. “‘Can you imagine what it feels like to pick up that magazine [MRR 5], something you totally respect, and read all these fucking opinions about you?’ Armstrong asked Spin in 1994” (ibid.). Absurdly enough, the band’s only fault was that they wanted to make great music and that a lot of people liked it as a matter of fact. In an Alternative Press interview (Burgess 2008) Billie Joe Armstrong, being the main songwriter of the band, talks about the reason for signing to a major label – against all odds.

I just have a desire to make great albums. All I ever wanted when we signed to a major label was the ability to make great records for the rest of my life, and that's what I feel like I'm trying to fulfill. There's a lot of pressure with that, but I'm glad to take it on, and I want it.

Green Day’s and especially Armstrong’s desire to connect to people through their music and lyrics (cf. Thompson 2009: 66) was definitely incompatible with Gilman’s elitist views and policies – at least from Gilman’s point of view. The people from the scene were so caught up in their rules and ethics that they could not think of a band as not being mainstream that was successful on a larger scale and attracted a larger audience than any other local band did. Green Day were increasingly successful, and their audience was growing steadily – but they were and still are far from being mainstream. “I was done with trying to be exclusive to one genre of music and one type of people that are into a specific thing,” Armstrong stresses to Alternative Press (Burgess 2008). The ‘Gilman issue’ will briefly be picked up again in another chapter because it is a crucial part of Green Day history and of the band’s critical view on the hardcore, elitist part of the punk scene. For the moment, it shall serve as one of many proofs that Green Day never wanted to live life the easy way, and that they have always had dreams they considered worth fighting for and – above all – worth living. They wanted to make music more than anything else, so that was what they did. Dookie is the title of the band’s first major label album, recorded for , a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. Signing at Reprise definitely helped the band evolve and would, most of all, mark the beginning of a long and worldwide career. (Green Day have recorded all their albums at this ever since.) Even if the album might not sound as

5 Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll

21 fresh and raw as earlier recordings, Dookie still consists of straightforward and honest punk rock songs, regarding equally the lyrics and the music. Green Day’s sound was polished, but they remained authentic, producing masterpieces and all-time classics like “Longview”, “” 6, “Basket Case”, “She” and “”. It was with Dookie that they felt the need to define for the first time who they were as a band and to make a clear (anti-)statement – like in “She”: “She / She screams in silence / A sullen riot penetrating through her mind / […] / Are you locked up in a world that’s been planned out for you? / Are you feeling like a social tool without a use?”. A lot of punk rock bands had already failed the major label experiment (cf. Spitz 2006: 92). Green Day, however, gambled and rose to the challenge, increasingly making expressive statements one of their most significant characteristics. Still, they repeatedly stress that it is not their intention to influence people: “We’re not politicians, we’re a rock ‘n’ roll band. We like to have fun. We definitely don’t tell people what to think. Writing certain songs, it’s not us on a podium but rather it’s us just trying to figure things out, we’re just telling them how we see it,” emphasizes Mike Dirnt in an interview with Big Cheese (Chaddock 2009: 52). Green Day have become more and more a political band but they have never forgotten about their roots, so that their hometown, or better the tough situation in in general, is a recurring theme in their lyrics by now. This is especially, or better, most explicitly the case on their last two albums, for example in the songs “Jesus of Suburbia” and “21 st Century Breakdown”, as we shall see later on in the analytical part of this thesis. Musically, their roots are in punk rock, but there is also “their unabashed love for […]. These had always been the two opposing sides of Green Day” (Spitz 2006: xi). There seems to be an innate duality about this band indeed, because they are in more than one sense a , as one of their songs on the album Insomniac suggests. This can be exemplified by various facts. Firstly, Green Day signed to a major label – a risky undertaking that was absolutely against the punk ethics of their scene – and thrived with this decision. Secondly, the band members’ family lives, or at least the one of front man Billie Joe Armstrong, who has two sons and has been married for 16 years now, do not exactly conform to the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ stereotype – at least not all the time. Moreover, the band never saw punk rock as elitist and has always been open to different styles in music. Maybe it was their expulsion from Gilman that made them even more open-

6 This song already appeared on Kerplunk! but has never been released as a single. Billie Joe Armstrong refused for personal reasons. Nonetheless, “Welcome to Paradise” enjoyed incredible radio success and became one of Green Day’s most famous songs.

22 minded: “‘Punk sometimes has this defeatist attitude where you can’t expand,’ Billie Joe said in a February 11, 2005 article” (Small 2005: 102). Green Day never set themselves unnecessary limits. Their repertoire consists of groundbreaking (punk) rock songs – melodic as well as aggressive ones –, some pieces of speed and punk, and also of enormously touching ballads. The important thing for the band seems to be that they want to be innovative, but still remain Green Day in the very core of what they are doing. What they could probably not have done as Green Day was the step aside they took (between American Idiot and 21 st Century Breakdown ) by forming their ‘funky’ and, to some extent, filthy 7, providing themselves with new identities as it were, and the freedom of making music (, in this case) and playing shows without the expectations they impose on themselves as Green Day. Such expectations naturally carry a lot of pressure with them, but (maybe because of the refreshing and fun experiences they gained as Foxboro Hot Tubs) this band is consistently ready and glad to accept it (cf. quotation on page 20), and to meet new challenges.

‘I look at a band like U2 that started out more or less as a punk band but kept expanding and wound up being one of the biggest bands in the world. And I think it’s okay to want that.’ […] [Billie Joe adds] in his usual forthright style, ‘Do I consider myself a leader of this genre? F*** yeah, I do.’ (Small 2005: 102)

The punk rock that Green Day embody apparently builds on the interaction of contradictions and leaves, most notably, room for expansion – musically as well as personally. Green Day certainly became one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and they did this not only once but twice , referring to the band’s two epic concept albums American Idiot and 21 st Century Breakdown and not even counting the impact of Dookie . Although it might not always be easy, Green Day (and especially its lead vocalist) is the best example that (two or more) extremes do not necessarily have to contradict, but that they actually can or have to co-exist. In this case, it does not even seem daring to say that those extremes are inseparable and that one could not even exist without the other – like Billie Joe Armstrong the father and husband, and Billie Joe Armstrong the punk rocker and musician. To accept contradictions as a vital part of one’s life, and to be oneself and follow one’s convictions unapologetically is certainly the most punk rock way of life. Speaking of contradictions – is it not amazing that a punk rock band from California recorded the triumphant concept album American Idiot and some years later transformed it

7 The album Stop, Drop and Roll!!! was released in 2008.

23 into an incredibly successful musical at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which moved to Broadway in 2010 and enjoys enormous success there as well? Billie Joe Armstrong even assumed the role of St. Jimmy for several performances in 2010 and 2011, earning enthusiastic screams as well as standing ovations from the audience for his performance. When being asked about the many different generations that discover Green Day, Armstrong points out that “[a]rguably, there are a lot of people who’ll say that […] Kerplunk! is the best record we ever made. But that’s cool, you know what I mean? It’s just a lot of different people, a lot of different tastes, a lot of different eras” (Burgess 2008). Green Day definitely are a walking contradiction that is fascinating beyond belief. They are “three punks who named their band after slacker slang for sitting around getting stoned [and became] the most prescient polemicists of their age” (Silver 2009). Considering this, it is hardly surprising that, when taking a closer look at the band’s discography, we are talking about dookie, insomnia, warnings, some shenanigans, a certain idiot, a breakdown … and hope.

3. 80 and the early years

“[There was] one thing that made [Armstrong] feel strong and capable when so many situations around him now seemed foreign and frightening: music.” (Spitz 2006: 10)

3.1 “Some call it slums, some call it nice”

In a remarkable number of cases, Green Day’s lyrics mirror the band members’ experiences or even certain stages in their lives. Sometimes this happens obliquely, e.g. with “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)” about a painful separation; at other times it is more obvious, e.g. in the case of “21 st Century Breakdown”, which deals (among other things) with growing up in Rodeo. As these two examples alone show, the songs are inspired not just by good experiences but also by unpleasant ones. “Armstrong learned in his preteens how to write himself out of a bad situation and continued to do so as he approached his early twenties. Any number of bad situations could equal a great song” (Spitz 2006: 48, referring to the song “Welcome to Paradise”, which Armstrong wrote about his sometimes excruciatingly inhospitable living situation in the early nineties).

24 Lyrics can certainly have a therapeutic function for the songwriter and the listeners alike. A fear that the band doubtlessly shared with a large part of their audience in their early years was the fear of growing up and the frustration of not having promising perspectives in life. “When I was younger I thought the world circled around me / But in time I realized I was so wrong / My immortal thoughts turned into just dreams of a dead future / It was a tragic case of my reality”, Armstrong sings in “One of my Lies” from Kerplunk! . The song’s lyrics skilfully display the themes of disappointment and frustration of a young person who is, at a certain point in life, forced to dismiss all too grandiose views of the future and of life in general. In this case, growing up equals the necessity of abandoning childlike naivety and the expectations that are linked to it. From a first-person point of view, Armstrong tells the listener about “immortal thoughts” – probably passionate dreams and plans for the future – that are eventually undermined by reality. The subject in this song mentions death itself as the antagonist, so to speak, to the seemingly “immortal thoughts”. By lamenting “Why does my life have to be so small? / Yet death is forever / And does forever have a life to call its own?,” it is even suggested that – paradoxically – death appears to be immortal, meaning omnipresent and everlasting. Summing up, “One of my Lies” closes with a skeptical statement, or rather a question: “I used to pray all night / Before I lay myself down / My mother said it was right / Her mother said it too … / Why?”. The question is if there is any use in praying when your hopes and dreams are going to waste. It is very likely that Billie Joe Armstrong had just the same feelings and asked himself the same disillusioned question, simple but yet so significant, more than once in his life, especially in his adolescence, which would make this song one more of many autobiographical ones. When he lost his father, for instance, he had to learn at a painfully young age that death is inevitable and can literally crush a person at any time. Even if this experience did not destroy him for good, it definitely had a considerable impact on his life and changed his worldview. Sadly enough, it was what initially made this artist start writing songs. Seen from a different angle, it was thus how he learned to write himself out of an awful situation. Of course, the above-mentioned fear of growing up can have more than one cause, but it surely has to do with the change of a person’s character. In “Road to Acceptance” Armstrong mentions that people are even willing to risk their individuality and personal convictions to achieve acceptance and to belong to a certain group of people; a need that most likely increases with growing age because people seek to define who they are in life: “We all want to join some family / We’ll even sacrifice a moral changing”. Here, the word “family” could stand for any kind of community sharing interests so to speak. The “moral changing”

25 appears to be one of the most disturbing things for the songwriter in connection with growing up. In “16” (like “Road to Acceptance” an early song from 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours ) he sings:

Things are easy when you’re a child / But now these pressures have dropped on my head / […] / Look at my friends and see what they’ve done / Ask myself why they had to change / I liked them better when they were young / Now all these times are rearranged / […] / Nothing ever will be the same.

Although these songs do not really specify the types of pressures or problems they are referring to, there is one predominant statement in the lyrics: People who “sacrifice a moral changing” just to belong to a certain community, or because they think it is the right thing for grown-ups to do, basically take a turn for the worse concerning their personality. On the one hand, Armstrong seems to be aware of how tempting it is to feel accepted by others, singing that “ we all want to join some family” (my emphasis) in “Road to Acceptance”. On the other hand, he uses the word “sacrifice”, indicating that if people betray themselves and their beliefs in order to appeal to others, they lose – or better sacrifice – a part of their character and individuality. Maybe he wants to refer to the loss of the innate lightheartedness that nearly everyone has when they are still young and that this sacrifice often makes people forget who they really are. Doubtlessly, to maintain this virtue in one’s adulthood with all its pressures and responsibilities is a challenge that not many people can live up to. In summary, both “16” and “Road to Acceptance” criticize the way people frequently refashion themselves in a self- deceiving manner, and link such behavior directly to the unavoidable coming-of-age process that everyone has to cope with eventually. What is more, these two songs – if not autobiographical then at least autobiographically inspired – question the necessity of such a change, as the above-cited line from “16” implies: “Ask myself why they had to change / I liked them better when they were young”. Later on, in 1994, it was probably due to the sudden and enormous success of Dookie that Green Day felt somewhat intimidated and afraid of having to grow up and take on responsibility as the immensely popular band they had become. The band members were all still quite young (in their early twenties) and faced a dimension of success and pressure they had not at all expected. After all, they were said to have initiated something that many people called ‘the punk-revival’ in the early nineties, which may have made them feel forced into a role model position. As hard and overwhelming this situation probably felt, the band managed to reject any stereotype or cliché that was imposed on them to such an extent that they keep

26 surprising both their audience and critics to this day. What Green Day have always retained, however, is the integration of positive as well as negative personal experiences into their lyrics, which definitely contributes to their accessibility. “Welcome to Paradise”, another one of Armstrong’s very personal songs, is also a song about growing up – but still a special case. For Green Day’s front man, growing up – in a predominantly positive sense – meant leaving home. His decision did not have to do with his family in the first instance, but rather with the living conditions in his hometown Rodeo, which have already been briefly touched. In this respect, Armstrong often talks about the alienation that results from feeling like one of the many unappreciated and disenfranchised teenagers in a place where hardly anyone seems to care about you and your worries. “You just get that feeling of ‘I’ve got to get out of here. There’s more to life than this town’” (Spitz 2006: 2). Even if leaving home was the right step for Armstrong to take, it also confronted him with another difficult situation, which he dealt with in a song. “Welcome to Paradise” is basically about his housing situation after he had left home. Due to his lack of jobs and money, it was perfectly alright for Armstrong to sleep on other people’s couches or “punk rock crash pads. Many of them, however, were in dangerous parts of the city” (ibid.: 47). The song was in particular inspired by an “unsavory warehouse space, above a West Oakland brothel” (ibid.: 48). “Welcome to Paradise” starts impetuously and literally explodes on the listener. It sounds aggressive and communicates any idea but one of paradise. The same applies to the lyrics themselves. In the first verse the speaker directly addresses his 8 mother. Throughout the song, the first-person point of view is kept up.

Dear mother, can you hear me whinin’? / It’s been three whole weeks since that I have left your home / This sudden fear has left me tremblin’ / Cause now it seems that I am out here on my own / And I’m feeling so alone / Pay attention to the cracked streets and the broken homes / Some call it slums some call it nice / I want to take you through a wasteland I like to call my home / Welcome to paradise.

The speaker talks about “whinin’” and “feeling so alone” so that, at first, the listener gets the impression that the decision of leaving home was possibly not the right one. However, anxiety gradually seems to give way to determination. The first two lines of the chorus – “Pay

8 Because of the song’s autobiographical background, it can be assumed that the speaker is male. Moreover, the speaker will be referred to as ‘he’ throughout this paper because of the many autobiographical or autobiographically inspired songs composed by Green Day’s chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong, and – put simply – because the speaker is evidently male in a large number of their songs. Exceptions to this tendency will of course be sufficiently discussed if necessary.

27 attention to the cracked streets and the broken homes / Some call it slums some call it nice” – are probably meant to encourage the addressee to literally pay attention to certain degenerate places that some people call slums without actually thinking about the fact that others call it their homes and could not imagine living anywhere else. The speaker himself refers to his new home as a “wasteland”, but what stands out is the word ‘like’ in the line “I want to take you through a wasteland I like to call my home” (my emphasis). Although it might sound quite sarcastic, the use of the word ‘like’ in this context is the first time the speaker indicates that he feels rather confident about his choice to leave his former home. He has accepted this wasteland as his new home and maybe it has really become his own personal paradise… The second verse of “Welcome to Paradise” offers a little more detail on the aforementioned wasteland: “A gunshot rings out at the station / Another urchin snaps and left dead on his own / It makes me wonder why I’m still here / For some strange reason it’s still now feeling like my home / I’m never gonna go”. The speaker is obviously conscious of the dangers and the violence that are part of his new living situation and environment. Above all, he calls his new home “wasteland” and “paradise” at the same time. For an extremely short moment he asks himself why he is still there in this dubious place that appears to be anything but hospitable, let alone homelike. In the next line, he admits that his reason may be a strange one, but that – for him – “still now” it actually feels like home and that he has no intention at all of leaving this place. His doubts are only halfhearted and not strong enough to really make him reconsider his decision, even if his reasons do not even make perfect sense to himself. The line “I’m never gonna go” shows uncompromising determination. Before the third verse, there is an instrumental interlude, starting with a gloomy bass line that is shortly after joined by drums and an edgy electric guitar riff. This part of the song sounds dangerous and lugubrious, as if to emphasize the wicked character of the wasteland and the generally sinister atmosphere of “Welcome to Paradise”. The interlude rises to a climax, sounding more and more loud and urgent, but then returns to the original tone sequence, so that no perceptible change remains in the song as such. However, there is a small but still essential change in the lyrics. The third verse starts like the first one with the speaker addressing his mother, but now he asks “Dear mother, can you hear me laughin’? / It’s been six whole months since that I have left your home”. Moreover, the “whinin’” has been replaced by “laughin’”. Hence, it can be assumed that the more time the speaker spends away from home (by now “six whole months”) the stronger he gets, and the more this wasteland he is referring to as his new home becomes his actual paradise. Still, the last three lines of the second verse are repeated: “It makes me wonder why I’m still here / For some strange reason

28 it’s still now feeling like my home / I’m never gonna go”. Maybe the longer the speaker is away from home the more he is wondering about his reasons to stay, or rather about why he still does not want to leave. The word “laughin’” already shows that he seems to be increasingly assured about his decision. The repetition of the three lines that have just been quoted suggests on the one hand that certain doubtful thoughts keep coming back but that, on the other hand, he also keeps reaching the same conclusion, i.e. that he is never going to leave. It also seems to indicate that even if the hard situation in the aforesaid wasteland is not changing or getting any better, he his more and more willing to meet this challenge. This development is significantly illustrated by the arrangement of the lyrics. Not only does “whinin’” change to “laughin’” in the course of the song, but the last line of the first verse “And I’m feeling so alone” also becomes “I’m never gonna go” in the second and third one. Although the promising aspects seem to have gained the upper hand from the speaker’s point of view, it is still not easy to define whether the line “Welcome to paradise” (which after all constitutes the title of this song) is really meant to signify some kind of paradise for him or if it is supposed to add a bitter and sarcastic touch to the song and its message. Most likely both notions are combined in the song’s title since, for the speaker, leaving home has positive aspects (self-determination and independence) as well as negative ones (moving from a protected family home to the most dangerous parts of a city, trying to make ends meet on his own). Even if the positive sides are dominant for him, he cannot and does not even try to deny the negative ones. The song in general, but especially the lyrics and the way they are sung sound highly defiant – as if the speaker (or the singer himself) wanted to stress that he can still handle this situation, no matter how shabby and dangerous his new life might be. Therefore, in addition to the phrase “Welcome to paradise” itself, “I’m never gonna go” is definitely the hook line of this extremely powerful song, which ends as abruptly as it started. Based on the themes of growing up and leaving home, the message of this song might be that if someone wants to grow up and become independent, this sometimes includes having to leave home (and possible restrictions that are linked to it) behind. In order to learn to rely on oneself someone has to overcome certain doubts and fears, like the speaker in “Welcome to Paradise” does. Although he does not seem to have improved his living situation by moving to alarmingly dangerous areas that resemble a wasteland more than anything else, he does not regret his decision at all. On the contrary, he feels more and more at home so that, having escaped the daily routine and desolation of the suburbs, he has probably found something like paradise after all.

29 On the whole, “Welcome to Paradise” is a special song in many ways, but particularly because, by writing this song, Billie Joe Armstrong dealt with a challenging phase in his life that was full of change and upheaval. It was probably because this time had such a profound impact on him that he never wanted the song to be published as a single. Nonetheless, the song appeared on two Green Day albums, first on Kerplunk! and later – in a rerecorded version – on Dookie , and also on the band’s International Superhits!. In its new version “‘Welcome to Paradise’ sounds crisper and even more furious than it did on Kerplunk! , now that the scary crash pad in West Oakland is even further behind him” (Spitz 2006: 94). Although Armstrong himself was ambivalent about recording the song again, “‘Welcome to Paradise’ became the radio smash that never made it to retail, further proof that even the band could do nothing to slow down their success in 1994” (ibid.: 107).

A theme that is partly connected to the one of growing up is the theme of love. The latter is even more permanently and dominantly represented in Green Day’s lyrics over the years. In fact, it does not only include lyrics of love in general, but more specifically the theme of the disenfranchised punk girl.

3.2 Love, pain and rebel girls

At first, it may sound peculiar to mention Green Day and lyrics of love in the same sentence – at least for someone who does not know the band well. However, as has already been briefly pointed out, the band “have always done songs about love and relationships and places in time” (Thompson 2009: 142), from their early years until the present. Although the lyrics may often appear slightly exaggerated or even kitschy, the music by and large remains powerful (punk) rock that is frequently combined with melodic part singing. Thus, a song never seems overblown or overcharged as a whole. A perfect example of such a love song is “2000 Light Years Away”, which has already been briefly mentioned and was probably written by Armstrong for his (at that time future) wife. The song is about two lovers who cannot be together either due to geographical distance, or because one of the two or both are still in a relationship with another person 9. The speaker is the boy who expresses his longing for the girl, but does not directly address her. He dreams of being with

9 This was actually the case when Armstrong and his wife Adrienne Nesser first met: both of them were in a relationship and also geographically separated, not only because they lived in different places, but because Armstrong was touring with the band back then.

30 the girl he loves, watching out for her in his imagination and wishing that she could be by his side. “In the distance” he seems to remember the time they spent together and were happy: “My pulse is speeding / My love is yearning / […] / I sit outside and watch the sunrise / Look out as far as I can / I can’t see her, but in the distance / I hear some laughter we laugh together”. Another good (and early) example is “Dry Ice” from 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours . Longing, sentimental lyrics are combined with spirited music when Armstrong sings “I’ll send a letter to that girl / Asking her to be my own / But my pen is writing wrong / So I’ll say it in a song / […] / Here’s those words straight from these lips / I’ll need you forever more / […] / Come ease the pain that’s in my heart”. For the speaker – and for Armstrong himself – it is obviously easier to display his feelings in a song than in any other way. Generally, a remarkable number of the band’s songs contain lyrics of love. One of the most fascinating facts is that the various lyrics include so many different aspects of this theme, i.e. not simply fulfilled and unfulfilled love. “At the Library” for instance (also from 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours ) is about a boy that feels attracted to a girl but does not have the courage to talk to her (possibly because he does not feel worthy of her) – a situation that probably most people can relate to and have experienced at least once in their lives: “Try to find the words I could use / Don’t have the courage to come up to you / My chance is looking a bit grey / […] / What is it that drives me mad? / Girls like you that I never had / What is it about you that I adore?” The song “Church on Sunday” from Warning , a rather different example, tells the listener about a ‘bad boy’ who wants to be together with a ‘good girl’, knowing that they have to find some compromise to make their relationship work. Being the speaker, the boy makes a suggestion: “Tears down your face / Leaving traces of my mistakes / If I promise to go to church on Sunday / Will you go with me on Friday night? / If you live with me, I’ll die for you / And this compromise”. He is willing to change for the better and stresses that “‘respect’ is something [he] will earn” if she has faith in him. Thus, they could be happy together. The list of songs about love and of actual love songs is virtually interminable and goes on until the rock song “She’s a Rebel” (from American Idiot ) and the ballad “Last Night on Earth” (from their latest album 21 st Century Breakdown ). According to bassist Mike Dirnt the latter is Green Day’s “most unapologetic love song” (Lynskey 2009: 52). It is indeed an extremely soulful ballad that has unsurprisingly been added to the encores of the band’s last tour, thus contributing to an already breath-taking concert experience by making it even more memorable for its audience. When Billie Joe Armstrong says that “you kind of end up in outer

31 space with this” (ibid.), he is definitely right in more than one sense. This statement is not only a – probably unintentional – allusion to the title of the song (“Last Night on Earth”), but effectively describes the special feeling this song evokes, which is created through a skillful combination of lyrics and music that are both profound and powerful, but in a rather subliminal way. In this song, a remarkable intimacy is created between speaker and addressee, which directly affects the listener and is thus yet another part of the magic of this pop gem. An essential factor that increases the excellence of all Green Day songs is Billie Joe Armstrong’s distinctive voice 10 , not only when he sings lyrics like the following: “With every breath that I am worth / Here on earth / I’m sending all my love to you / So if you dare to second guess / You can rest / Assured that all my love’s for you / My beating heart belongs to you / I walked for miles ‘til I found you”…

When talking about love and love songs, it is virtually inevitable to include a discussion of the topics of unfulfilled and painful love and also of separation. Even in this category of Green Day’s repertoire, many different examples can be found. Not all songs are as unambiguous as “One for the Razorbacks” from Kerplunk! , for instance, which has already been mentioned briefly. Even if the speaker states that he is “losing what’s left of [his] dignity”, he keeps repeating that he will try to make the girl happy again and even begs, “Open up your worried world and let me in”. Although it obviously involves positive and hopeful aspects, this song has a continually uncertain and desperate undertone to it, given that it is not sure whether the speaker will be able to eventually reach the girl and be happy himself. “Don’t Leave Me” from 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours is another unequivocal song concerning its title and its lyrics, which instantly clarify that no positive notion can be found here. Still, this song does not sound sad at all but rather angry: “I’ll go for miles / ‘Till I find you / You say you want to leave me / But you can’t choose / I’ve gone thru pain / Every day and night / I feel my mind is going insane / Something I can’t fight / Don’t leave me”. On the one hand, the speaker even seems to be angry at himself for not being able to forget and leave the person that causes this uncertainty that hurts him so much. On the other hand, he just wants the addressee of his plea not to leave him.

10 “It’s the singer not the song / That makes the music move along” (from the song “Join Together” by ).

32 In contrast to the last two examples, “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)”, a famous Green Day classic from the album Nimrod 11 , is not only a sensitive ballad, but also “one of the most misinterpreted pop songs of the last two decades (a bitter kiss-off, heard by most as a sweet love song)” (Spitz 2006: 70). Moreover, it is yet another proof of the band’s versatility: It is played entirely on acoustic guitar, accompanied by strings in the background and an extended strings section in the middle of the song. Despite its explicit title, this song has such a soft and memorable melody that certain parts of the lyrics can be misleading, like the chorus: “It’s something unpredictable / But in the end it’s right / I hope you had the time of your life”. When having a closer look at the lyrics, however, they are not at all that mistakable: “So make the best of this test / And don’t ask why / It’s not a question / But a lesson learned in time”. “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)” is a painfully honest and “mature reflection” (ibid.: 130) on a failed relationship. Armstrong explains the character of this song to the point: “A song like that is so vulnerable, and in a way, that’s sort of what punk is […]. Instead of throwing your insecurities into a closet somewhere and keeping your guard up all the time, it’s like celebrating it” (ibid.: 131). The word “celebrating” can be viewed as a possible key to a successful understanding of this song. The lyrics, as opposed to the song as such, sound bitter as well as confident, thus giving an ironic edge to the line “I hope you had the time of your life” and expressing – above all – ‘good riddance’.

With their lives being so close-knit to their lyrics, it certainly makes sense at this point to have a closer look at the girls who actually inspired Green Day’s love songs or songs about love. Billie Joe Armstrong and his wife Adrienne have been married for sixteen years. Without any doubt she was and still is a formative inspiration for many of Armstrong’s lyrics, though not the only one. The girl in “Pulling Teeth”, a song about a failed love, is one of Mike Dirnt’s girlfriends (and by now ex-wife), Anastacia. This song skillfully equals heartache with actual physical pain (cf. ibid.: 94). The subject of the above-mentioned “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)” is a girl called Amanda, who was a feminist and punk rocker from the Gilman scene – and Armstrong’s girlfriend. She was the one who ended their relationship. “What’s interesting is that Armstrong has never stopped writing about her… or the idea of her. […] She made him tougher by sharing her feisty views, and somehow older by breaking or at least scarring his heart” (ibid.: 70). Being unable to impress Amanda permanently was obviously another situation in which music helped Armstrong to overcome his pain.

11 This song had been written several years before it was finally recorded for Nimrod and has become a fixed highlight of each Green Day concert since then.

33 The lyrics he wrote about or for his wife are largely of a positive character and make the listener feel Armstrong’s love for her. The aforementioned song “80”, however, which was even named after Adrienne’s nickname, combines positive and negative aspects and alludes to a time when the couple was still geographically separated and their relationship had not even begun yet. The song sounds passionate and desperate at the same time, because even though the speaker asks “Is there any cure for this disease / Someone called love?” it becomes obvious throughout the song that he has no intention of forgetting the girl, let alone of stopping to think about her. He actually answers the question for himself: “Not as long as there are girls like you”. Although the speaker appears to be angry when he equals love with a disease and desperate when he muses about the pending madness based on his love for the girl, his longing for her becomes more and more palpable as the song proceeds. At the end, he addresses her directly and in a very soft way: “80 please keep taking me away”. For a moment it seems as if he is just drifting into another dream of 80, suggesting that she is worth the torture and that true love is perhaps not meant to be easy. Except in the case of “80”, which has been picked up here again for that very reason, it is rather secondary who was the exact girl to inspire a certain song. What is more important is “the idea of her ” (ibid.; my emphasis), that is, the idea or “portrait of a disenfranchised punk girl: a recurring theme in Armstrong’s lyrics that extends all the way up to” (ibid.: 94) Green Day’s latest albums and songs. Some examples are “She” from Dookie , “Maria” from International Superhits! , “Extraordinary Girl” and “She’s a Rebel” – the latter being based on Amanda’s influence (cf. ibid.: 70) –, both from American Idiot . In the majority of cases, the lyrics speak of a ‘she’, without mentioning any name. This shows that the focus is not on a specific person but, in fact, on the idea that the aforesaid punk girl embodies. Shortly, in the next in-depth analysis of a song, we will see what characteristics this image includes. For the moment, suffice it to say that it predominantly has to do with this girl living the defiant nature of punk rock; an attitude that Armstrong definitely – partly at least, if not completely – ascribes to his wife Adrienne. In “Maria”, for instance, Armstrong sings: “She’s […] an export of the revolution / She is the first voice of the last ones in the line”. To Alternative Press (Burgess 2008) he once described Adrienne like this:

I happen to have a really patient wife, and she’s really cool, and she’s really a politically conscious person, especially with environmental issues, and I think she has this sort of fear of the end of the world that’s naturally embedded into her. And sometimes I think that she may have married the end of the world. [ Laughs .]

34 Green Day’s latest song about the concept of a rebel girl is “Last of the American Girls” on the album 21 st Century Breakdown . This song was not entirely written about or for Adrienne, although – like in many other cases – she may have been Armstrong’s initial inspiration: “I started writing [Last of the American Girls] for my wife, but there’s elements of Hurricane Katrina and [pro-cycling] Critical Mass. It adds those elements to one character who has this left-wing strength” (Lynskey 2009: 52). In the context of the album, with its characters Christian and Gloria, whose names repeatedly appear throughout the lyrics, it can be assumed that Gloria is the subject of the song and therefore the character Armstrong is referring to. She is probably supposed to represent not only Adrienne Armstrong but punk and rebel girls in general. The title of the song suggests that such girls, at least in their purest and most uncompromisingly defiant form, have become rare. The following analysis of “Last of the American Girls” will reveal that it is perhaps Green Day’s most complete homage to her so far, pointing out what it is that makes this girl so unique. The song starts with a catchy but still rather simple bass line and beat. Armstrong joins in with melodic vocals and lyrics that tell the listener from a third person perspective about the last of the American girls:

She puts her makeup on / Like graffiti on the walls of the heartland / She’s got her little book of conspiracies / Right in her hand / She is paranoid like / Endangered species headed into extinction / She is one of a kind / She’s the last of the American girls.

The above-mentioned third person perspective is held up until the end of the song and clearly makes the ‘she’ the one and only center of attention. The speaker compares the girl’s makeup to “graffiti on the walls of the heartland”, probably referring to her expressing protest and rebellion against certain conservative and hidebound thoughts and attitudes 12 . The first two lines already emphasize that the girl has a rebellious personality. At the same time, however, the speaker calls her paranoid (like an endangered species could be) 13 and also mentions that she has a “little book of conspiracies”. Having in mind that this girl is obviously a rebel, she possibly keeps a record of the things that bother her and make her uneasy – things that she actually wishes to change. In short, this book seems to represent the fact that she wants to make a difference in this world, including conspiracies she means to unmask and other things

12 In this case, “heartland” presumably means the Midwest of the USA, a region which has a conservative reputation concerning politics and traditional values in general (cf. Grote 2002 and cf. Merriam-Webster Dictionary , s.v. “heartland”). 13 “[…] I think she has this sort of fear of the end of the world that’s naturally embedded into her” (Billie Joe Armstrong, in Burgess 2008; my emphasis).

35 she finds worth fighting for. Even if the word ‘paranoid’ does not appear flattering at first, it is the way Armstrong sings these lyrics and especially the last two lines, “She is one of a kind / She’s the last of the American girls”, that make the entire first verse (and subsequently those that follow) sound like a heartfelt compliment. In the second verse, the song gets more and more intense as opposed to the rather soft beginning. The guitars and the drums become more dominant than the bass, building to a climax in the transitional bridge and clearly reaching it in an instrumental section, which could be called the chorus of the song. The lyrics continue to provide more details about the last of the American girls: “She wears her overcoat / For the coming of the nuclear winter / She is riding her bike / Like a fugitive of Critical Mass / She’s on a hunger strike / For the ones who won’t make it for dinner / She makes enough to survive / For a holiday of working class”. In this verse, the speaker seems to give some examples of the girl’s paranoia: She wears her overcoat because she is expecting and fearing a nuclear winter; she is riding her bike as if she were a fugitive of Critical Mass, which is probably meant to signify that she rides her bike with more dedication and more passionately than the pro-cycling Critical Mass itself. However, as the song proceeds, the word ‘paranoia’ seems to become more and more inadequate, or better, it becomes more and more obvious that the speaker does not mean ‘paranoia’ in the negative sense of the word but, in fact, in a highly positive one. In addition to being paranoid at least to a certain extent, the girl possesses – above all – a strong will and steadfast principles, which she is willing to represent and defend, for instance when she decides to be on a hunger strike “for the ones who won’t make it for dinner”. “She makes enough to survive / For a holiday of working class,” Armstrong sings at the end of the second verse. When he uses the word ‘holiday’ he might as well refer to some kind of escape the rebel girl necessarily has to make from time to time. Most likely she has to make a living like everyone else, but she is aware of the constraints of being working-class without allowing them to prevail. She is not indifferent to what is happening in the world and wants to make a change by assertively remaining true to her beliefs. The idea of the above-mentioned escape is supported by the lyrics of the transitional bridge in which the girl is called ‘a runaway’: “She’s a runaway of the establishment incorporated / She won’t cooperate / She’s the last of the American girls”. Whereas the majority of the lyrics in this section is different when it reappears later in the song, the last line – which introduces the instrumental chorus – always remains “She’s the last of the American girls”; and “when Armstrong sings, ‘She won’t cooperate,’ he’s giving [this girl] the highest compliment he can imagine” (Sheffield 2009).

36 The third verse also tells us about the girl’s rebellious nature and behavior, but it contains a lot more ‘destructive’ associations than the first and the second one: “She plays her vinyl records / Singing songs on the eve of destruction [14 ] / She’s a sucker for / All the criminals breaking the laws / She will come in first / For the end of western civilization / She’s an endless war / She’s a hero for the lost cause” (my emphases). Clearly, the speaker thinks that the girl has an innate anarchic energy in what she does and believes, which is something he definitely admires about her. He calls her “an endless war”, meaning that she is restless and constantly keeps fighting for her beliefs and ideals even if the chances of succeeding might be small or not there at all, as the line “She’s a hero for the lost cause” suggests. The last of the American girls does not give up on something that seems to be a “lost cause”, but uncompromisingly follows her own mind, for example when “She’s on a hunger strike / For the ones who won’t make it for dinner”, which could by all means be called a “lost cause”. She decides not to re act, but to act – in other words, to be proactive. Undoubtedly, this girl does not only challenge herself, but other people as well, and she therefore has the power enthuse others and to sweep them off their feet. In the next transitional bridge, the girl’s power is described like this: “Like a hurricane / In the heart of the devastation / She’s a natural disaster / She’s the last of the American girls”. The speaker calls her a “natural disaster” and even compares her to a hurricane, thus emphasizing once more the above-mentioned anarchic energy she embodies. When using a metaphor like “natural disaster”, it goes without saying that this does not only express how powerful the girl is, but that she might also be dangerous in a certain way, and it is not the first time that Armstrong calls rebel girls dangerous. In the American Idiot song “She’s a Rebel” he sings: “She’s a rebel / She’s a saint / She’s the salt of the earth / And she’s dangerous”. However, the word ‘dangerous’ should not only be interpreted in a negative way because Armstrong, as the songwriter, makes it explicitly clear that he is singing about a unique – and therefore challenging – girl. When he calls her ‘dangerous’ it is probably because a real rebel girl can be highly unpredictable. In “She’s a Rebel” he sings that “she’s holding on my heart like a hand grenade”, which might refer to the way how easily such a girl can win someone’s heart, but you never know when or if she will release it, throw it away and thus make it explode. Still, Armstrong equals a rebel with a saint, calls her “the salt of the earth” and adds that “She brings this liberation / That I just can’t define”.

14 This line might be an intertextual reference to the protest song “Eve of Destruction” (1965) by Barry McGuire.

37 In the broadest sense, some elements of earlier songs about rebel girls can be found in “Last of the American Girls”. Not only do the lyrics repeatedly imply that the girl is dangerous (like in “She’s a Rebel”), the speaker also keeps stressing that she has a maddening personality. The latter can be found in “Last of the American Girls”, but not as clearly as in “80” (“My mental stability reaches its bitter end / And all my senses are coming unglued”) because there is not even a first person in the first song. Generally, the speaker seems to be contradictory in what he tells the listener about her . On the one hand, he calls her ‘paranoid’, ‘dangerous’, ‘a natural disaster’; but on the other hand, it is obvious how much he loves and admires her and her strong personality. She fascinates him (and other people) although she might be a contradiction in herself. As has already been stated, a contradiction is not necessarily something bad (cf. pages 14; 22-23). After an instrumental bridge, “Last of the American Girls” closes with another, but this time extended transitional bridge, which repeats parts of the lyrics of the first and third verse and of the second transitional bridge, thus providing a frame for the song and rounding it off: “She puts her makeup on / Like graffiti on the walls of the heartland / She’s got her little book of conspiracies / Right in her hand / She will come in first / For the end of western civilization / She’s a natural disaster / She’s the last of the American girls”. The vibrant instrumental chorus eventually concludes the song. To sum up, “‘Last of the American Girls’ comes on as a fabulous left-wing love song to a rebel girl” (Sheffield 2009). It is an ode to idealism, or better to a girl who is “idealistic and political” (ibid.) and, without any doubt, “one of a kind”. The song has previously been called the most complete homage to her because it is richer in detail (concerning the girl’s attitude and characteristics) and also lyrically more ambitious than any other of Green Day’s rebel girl songs. For instance, there is a considerable number of comparisons and metaphors in this song, which creates a lot of meaningful images and draws a clear and manifold picture of the girl. In short, what seems to be her most prominent trait is the fact that she cares – not only about other (maybe less fortunate) people but also about the environment, politics, and about what is happening in the world around her. She believes that she, like anyone else, can make a change by being proactive, i.e. by making a contribution to this world and distinguish oneself. A question that still remains unanswered about this song shall now briefly be dealt with. The possible reason why Armstrong chose to sing “She’s the last of the American Girls” (my emphasis) is that he wanted to (obliquely) allude to America as a whole. The virtues that the girl embodies are maybe something that Armstrong thinks should be innately American, i.e. something that the “land of the free / And the home of the brave” should

38 embody, too, like integrity and probably even nonconformity. All in all, the focus of the song is predominantly on the aforementioned “natural disaster” that Billie Joe Armstrong calls the “Last of the American Girls”.

Many facts about Green Day, but especially their remarkably persistent tradition of writing and singing lyrics of love, show that they are not “a typical angry hardcore band” (Thompson 2009: 142). The fact that they started to distinguish themselves from other bands in their genre started at a very early stage in their career. As we already know, Green Day did not voluntarily turn their backs from the scene – they were banned and had to make the painful experience that “there’s no return from 86”.

3.3 “I never wanted to be famous …”

“… I only wanted to be great” ( Quotationsbook 2007). Doubtlessly, this quote from expresses what Green Day, and in particular Billie Joe Armstrong, have thought and felt more than once in their lives. First of all, there was their banishment from Gilman, where people could not – or did not want to – understand 15 that the band signed to a major label because they wanted to make great music. The hurtful rejection that the band had to face from the scene is yet another experience that found its expression in a song. “86” is a song from their second major label album Insomniac . Obviously, the song’s background is that Green Day were eighty-sixed from Gilman. The lyrics are written from a fundamentalist Gilman perspective and, together with the music, sound angry as well as quite arrogant: “What brings you around? / Did you lose something the last time you were here? / You’ll never find it now / It’s buried deep with your identity / […] / There’s no return from 86 / Don’t even try”. Presumably, Green Day wanted to phrase both, their own disappointment (which is evidently hidden in this song) and Gilman’s presumptuous “no-rock-stars policy” (Spitz 2006: 87). From today’s perspective, what is relevant is that the band’s decision was right after all. In this regard, Lenny Kaye (guitarist and composer of the Patti Smith Group) found some highly appropriate words: “That they’re playing is not important. That’s just quantity. […] What’s important is the fact that Green Day plays” (ibid.: xv). The band never returned from 86, indeed. Instead, Green Day decided to move on. Billie Joe Armstrong put it

15 “‘Punk rock is elitist,’ of NOFX explains, ‘and people in punk rock feel like ‘this is our scene; we don’t want other people liking this kind of music’’” (Spitz 2006: 86).

39 like this: “My band just moved on, and that’s the only way I can really say it. We just went where the music was taking us” (Thompson 2009: 142). Green Day have come a long way and although their decision to sign to a major label was basically the right one, there should come a time when they would doubt this decision and even themselves. As has been mentioned above, the band might have thought the same as Ray Charles for the first time when they signed to a major label. They probably felt the exact same thing for the second time after the remarkable success of Dookie and before they started to work on Insomniac , a record with a very significant title and “one of the most anticipated rock releases of 1995” (Spitz 2006: 117). The three bandmates were still quite young and really wanted to be great, not necessarily famous. In 1995, however, the success of selling ten million records and the pressure linked to it were taking their toll. “[…] they were still shell- shocked by the events of the previous year and struggling with questions of identity and purpose. […] There was more to it now: family, money, image, pressure” (ibid.). Although Insomniac did not sell as much copies as Dookie , it is still a fascinating record, which skillfully combines old school sounding Green Day songs (e.g. “Armatage Shanks”, “”, “No pride” and “86”) with more progressive and darker songs (e.g. the album’s first single “”, “Bab’s Uvula Who?”, the Green Day classics “Brain Stew” and “Jaded”, and not least “Walking Contradiction”). The public expectations concerning Dookie ’s follow-up were immense and “the band indeed felt that they had to prove themselves ‘still punk’” (ibid.: 119). The album as a whole is definitely harder and darker (cf. ibid.: 120) than its predecessor and the lyrics consistently express what seems like a nagging urge to prove something to the world and ultimately to themselves. Maybe they were not even sure what they were trying to prove. One the one hand, “the band probably didn’t want to be the hit-making machine” (ibid.), but on the other, they were surely disappointed that Insomniac did not sell as well as Dookie . What must not be disregarded in this context is the fact that the members of the band were already husbands and fathers at that time. Their obvious confusion with life is clearly palpable in their lyrics, such as in the case of “Geek Stink Breath”: “I’m on a mission / I made my decision / To lead a path of self- destruction / […] / I’m on a roll / No self-control / I’m blowing off steam with / Meth Amphetamine / Don’t know what I want / That’s all that I’ve got”. Green Day did not only sing about taking drugs and self-destruction but also very plainly about feeling lonely and lost, like in “Armatage Shanks”: “Stranded / Lost inside myself / My own worst friend / My own closest enemy / Branded / Maladjusted / […] / I’m a loner in a catastrophic mind / […] / No meaning / No healing”. Examples of this kind seem to be infinite on Insomniac . There is

40 hardly any room for doubting that who wrote these lyrics must have felt exactly that way, in that the wording is not allusive but keenly unambiguous. In “Stuck with me”, the speaker (who can be said to represent not only Billie Joe Armstrong but the whole band) admits that he’s not alright: “Cast out / Buried in a hole / Struck down / Forcing me to fall / Destroyed / Giving up the fight / I know I’m not alright”. Green Day were not feeling so much as rock stars anymore, but were overstrained with the situation and, in a certain way, stuck with themselves. “As usual, only Green Day could relate to what they were going through” (ibid.: 118) and they did so not least by means of their lyrics and thus never gave up the fight. “Billie Joe wrote some of his new material while staying up all night with his young son. These sleepless nights inspired the album’s title” (ibid.) and in particular the song “Brain Stew”. The title of the song already suggests that Armstrong must have been on the edge of losing his mind when he wrote the lyrics: “I’m having trouble trying to sleep / I’m counting sheep but running out / As time ticks by / And still I try / No rest for crosstops in my mind / On my own / Here we go”. In this first verse of the song Armstrong explicitly refers to his insomnia and says that he is even running out of sheep to count. The speaker is trying in vain to fall asleep and get some rest, but still keeps trying. The line “No rest for crosstops in my mind”, however, suggests that he is not only trying to fall asleep but also to stimulate himself with crosstops, a kind of amphetamine. Maybe he wants to create some artificial euphoria because he cannot find any stimulation and inspiration in real life. On the one hand, he probably does not want to be or become apathetic. On the other hand, he needs and wants to sleep. Amongst other things, it seems to be this contradictoriness that prevents him from feeling either stimulated or rested, so that he ends up being caught somewhere between the two. It looks as if the drugs he takes to get through the day make him even more restless at night, thus causing a fatal vicious circle. When Armstrong sings “On my own / here we go” he indicates that he must have felt immensely lonely when he wrote this song – even though he had the band and his family near him. This line is repeated at the end of each verse. In the second verse, which is repeated at the end of the song, the speaker describes his physical condition: “My eyes feel like they’re going to bleed / Dried up and bulging out my skull / My mouth is dry / My face is numb / Fucked up and spun out in my room / On my own / Here we go”. The expressions ‘fucked up’ and ‘spun out’ might refer to drugs and alcohol or just to how worn out he feels. With all these descriptions the listener cannot help but assume that the speaker, although he is unable to sleep, must be extremely tired – probably in more than one sense. Throughout the song, there is a perceptible lack of sense and passion in his life, which makes it impossible for him to find some sort of balance.

41 The third verse focuses more on the mental condition of the speaker: “My mind is set on overdrive / The clock is laughing in my face / A crooked spine / My sense dulled / Passed the point of delirium / On my own / Here we go”. The lyrics of “Brain Stew” are widely self- explanatory. The speaker is feeling terrible because he cannot get any rest; not only in the sense of sleep but concerning his whole life. He is in desperate need of some peace of mind but he obviously has already “Passed the point of delirium” instead of reaching a point of equilibrium. In the case of “Brain Stew”, the music effectively reflects the lyrics and contents of the song 16 . It might sound monotonous because of its rather slow pace but has a harsh guitar riff which basically does not change at all throughout the song. The only modification lies in the alternating predominance of either drums or electric guitars. In addition, there does not seem to be a chorus in the usual sense, only an instrumental section between the verses. The end of “Brain Stew” is a special case, too, because this song does not just end, but segue into another song called “Jaded”. Generally, it often happens that songs are musically linked on an album but are still treated as two different songs. Although “Brain Stew” and “Jaded” sound very different and are listed as separate songs on Insomniac (10. and 11.), they have become inseparable by now. Not only do the two songs appear in the exact same position on Green Day’s greatest hits album International Superhits! (again 10. and 11.) and are always played together in this order at concerts, they are often referred to as one song, spelled “Brain Stew/Jaded”. Even the songs’ videos have been merged, or at least linked. Like the songs themselves, the videos are very different from each other. The only obvious connection that can be found is in the lyrics and the titles of the two songs. On the one hand, “Brain Stew” presents the listener with the melancholic and dreary side of insomnia. On the other hand, “Jaded” literally refers to exhaustion and is therefore probably meant to represent the lurking madness and desperation that can be caused by sustained insomnia. The lyrics definitely appear more cryptic than in “Brain Stew” in that they offer more room for interpretation. Linked to sleeplessness, however, the words immediately make sense. The following are the first verse and the chorus of “Jaded”. The latter is repeated twice at the end of the song.

Somebody keep my balance / I think I’m falling off / Into a state of regression / The expiration date / Rapidly coming up / It’s leaving me behind to rank / Always move forward / Going “straight” will get you nowhere / There is no progress / Evolution kill it all / I found my place in nowhere.

16 The same applies to the video for “Brain Stew” which shows a garbage dump and the band sitting lethargically on a shabby couch that is dragged along by a caterpillar.

42 The speaker stresses that he lacks balance and would need someone else to keep it for him. He is talking about his own expiration date, which suggests that he already feels so worn out that, for him, it feels like he is – figuratively – turning rancid. He does not see any room for development in his life, but rather finds himself trapped in regression and stresses that “There is no progress”. The lines “Always move forward / Going ‘straight’ will get you nowhere” might indicate that the speaker still thinks it is important to keep going and move forward no matter how miserable you feel, but that falling into line will not lead anywhere. At the same time, he admits that he “found [his] place in nowhere ” (my emphasis). Like in “Brain Stew”, it seems as if the speaker is caught somewhere in between, for example between reality and what he wants his life to be like. He is obviously not sure where he belongs or where his place in life is. In the second verse, no ‘moving forward’ is mentioned at all. The speaker stresses once more that he does not have any balance (in his life): “I’m taking one step sideways / Leading with my crutch / Got a fucked up equilibrium / Count down from 9 to 5 / Hooray! We are gonna die! / Blessed into our extinction ” (my emphases). “9 to 5”, or nine-to-five, refers to a normal office job (with a usual working time from nine until five o’ clock) and subsequently alludes to Billie Joe Armstrong’s (and all the band members’) fear of having to take such a job instead of being able to do what they truly love: making music. Armstrong sings “Count down from 9 to 5”, which clarifies that this must be a fatal countdown for him. In this context, the lines “Hooray! We are gonna die! / Blessed into our extinction” can be interpreted in two different ways. First, they could be considered ironic. Second, they could be taken literally. The latter would suggest that the speaker, who is in this case definitely equatable with Armstrong, would favor his own and maybe even the band’s 17 ‘extinction’ over a nine-to-five or a situation in which there is no progress but regression. Moreover, there is a noticeable existential fear implied in the lyrics of “Jaded”, especially by mentioning “9 to 5”, an expiration date that is rapidly coming up, and not least the word ‘extinction’. As has been pointed out, the band was not at all satisfied with Insomniac ’s commercial success. Together with this disappointment, doubts and the above-mentioned existential fear arose, because all members of Green Day knew they had to take care of their own families now. In general, “Jaded” is a lot faster and sounds more aggressive than the lugubrious “Brain Stew”. In both songs the speaker (and the singer) is obviously on the verge of madness. “Jaded” sounds even more confused, virtually hyperactive, which makes the song

17 Only twice in this song, a plural is used: “Hooray! We are gonna die! / Blessed into our extinction” (my emphases).

43 rather hard to follow concerning lyrics and content – something that was probably intended by Billie Joe Armstrong as the songwriter. The song comes like a surge to the listener and ends very abruptly. There is no climax except for the song itself. The pace of “Jaded” is so fast that there does not seem to be a balance in this song, which is supposedly meant to reflect the speaker’s disequilibrium 18 . Even the video’s setting is highly telling in this case. It shows the band performing in a small and narrow room and the camera moves as uncoordinated and fast as the song itself. For the speaker it is not the spatial but the mental and emotional narrowness that nearly overwhelm him. It is quite easy for the listener to identify with the speaker and relate to his feelings in both songs because of the predominant first-person perspective.

Fundamentally, Insomniac provides its listeners with a remarkable insight into Green Day’s emotional life at the time when the songs for this album were written. Although the lyrics on this album are largely reflective, dark and rather pessimistic, there is also one outstanding example of fresh and (at least seemingly) more cheerful punk rock lyrics:

Do as I say not as I do because / The shit’s so deep you can’t run away / I beg to differ on the contrary / I agree with every word that you say / Talk is cheap and lies are expensive / My wallet’s fat and so is my head / Hit and run and then I’ll hit you again / I’m a smart ass but I’m playing dumb.

In “Walking Contradiction” various contradictory things are said in the same breath so that either one could be true. Still, the song is not just about fooling around with these discrepancies. When looking at – but also behind – the lyrics, we find out that they have a much more serious background than it appears at first. Clearly, this song was written at a time when it was extremely hard for the band to balance their careers with their family lives. They all had to face a completely new and definitely confusing situation in which it must have been a demanding challenge to set the right priorities: “‘Having a son has changed my ideas about life,’ Armstrong said at the time. ‘I am a father and I am a husband and I have this relationship but at the same time I want to be like an arrogant rock ‘n’ roll star. The two roles definitely clash” (Spitz 2006: 127). In the song, Armstrong puts it like this: “Constant refutation with myself / I’m a victim of a catch 22 / I have no belief / But I believe / I’m a walking contradiction / And I ain’t got no right”. He speaks of “Constant refutation with [himself]” and a catch 22, which is a colloquial synonym for ‘dilemma’. Although he calls himself a ‘victim’ of this dilemma, one cannot help but notice a certain feeling of guilt

18 “Somebody keep my balance / I think I’m falling off”.

44 underlying these words. Subtextually, “Walking Contradiction” apparently follows the pattern of the whole album because its lyrics are not as effortless and off the cuff as some lines might suggest. In fact, what could be called the hook line of this song is “The shit’s so deep you can’t run away”. Doubtlessly, the speaker is stuck with himself, his confusion and the fact that he is a walking contradiction. On the one hand, he wants to be different; on the other, he would probably like to agree with what others say in order to get rid of a small part of his inner conflict at least. Green Day’s inner conflict would end up being solved when the band eventually managed to feel comfortable as a walking contradiction and became one of the most shining phenomena in music – not only over several decades but even in two different centuries. Of course, it was a long and tough process, and in 1995 there were still a lot of steps to take. For Green Day, the next one was to cancel the rest of their European Insomniac tour before it was finished and spend time with their families instead. They knew that something had to be different next time. “ Nimrod had to be different” (ibid.: 128).

Nimrod , the band’s third major label album (1997), was different:

Nimrod , with its horns, strings, and sheer size (it’s nearly twice as long as Dookie ) is surely not fenced in by provincial punk rock constraints . Nimrod , if nothing else, stands as a genuine transitional record […] and in many ways a farewell to the youth that had marked them as a band so deeply from Sweet Children onward (ibid.; my emphases).

This album is a transitional record par excellence because it marks the beginning of who Green Day were to become as musicians: musically versatile, ambitious and ready to test their boundaries. Nimrod constitutes a potpourri of eighteen songs which include the Green Day classics “”, “Hitchin’ a Ride” (a song that opens with strings) and “King for a Day”, “a cheeky […] lyric about cross-dressing enlivened by ska horns and a bass line cribbed from Otis Day and the Knights’ version of the Isley Brothers’ ‘Shout!’” (ibid.: 130). The above-mentioned ballad gem and all-time classic “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)” is probably the most exceptional song on the album, not only because of its pithy lyrics but especially concerning its sound (cf. page 33). “Uptight”, “Scattered”, “Walking Alone” and “Redundant” are (except maybe for the last two) no ballads but also rather melodic songs. The lyrics are highly reflective, as the following lines from “Redundant” will demonstrate: “We’re living in repetition / Content in the same old shtick again / Now the routine’s turning

45 to contention / Like a production line going over and over and over / […] / Choreographed and lack of passion / Prototypes of what we were”. These lyrics could easily be projected onto the band members, who very likely felt the need to find themselves “outside [their] punk rock identity” (Spitz 2006: 133) and to push their boundaries in order to not become redundant provincial punk rockers. “If Insomniac communicated ‘We still rock’, then Nimrod seemed to convey: ‘But we can do more than just rock, you know. We are creatively ambitious’” (ibid.). In contrast to the above-mentioned songs, the album also features dark hard-core songs like “Take Back” and “Platypus (I Hate You)”, which could be taken as a proof that the band was not afraid to experiment with music, for example by combining so many essentially different songs on one album and by using (for punk rock rather unusual) instruments like horns and strings. Moreover, there is “Last Ride In”, a completely instrumental and almost ruminant song which uses these instruments in the background. Considering Nimrod ’s transitional character, it must have been around that time when Green Day were starting to gather the courage to address more universal themes and topics in their lyrics.

4. Pledging allegiance to the underworld – Green Day’s first political statement

“I don’t know that he was thinking as politically as he would, […] but he was thinking more socially. It could have been a little bit of foreshadowing of things to come.” ( about Billie Joe Armstrong, in Spitz 2006: 141)

4.1 Starting to live (and write songs) without warning

In the year 2000, Green Day reached yet another crossroads in their careers. The new millennium had just started and the band wanted to enhance their music and creativity on a new record. The preliminary result of a creative process that had originally started with Nimrod was their all in all sixth album Warning . To begin with, this record has a surprisingly folky touch, which becomes clearly manifest in the following songs: “Misery” (because of its overall beat and the use of harmonica, mandolin and trumpets), “Hold On” (also because of its rhythm and the use of mouth organ and acoustic guitar), “” (which uses tambourine

46 and saxophone), and even the infamous “Minority”, “propelled by a folky harmonica line” (Spitz 2006: 141). Concerning the lyrics on Warning , there is a lot more social criticism than on any other Green Day record to date, and for the first time the listeners were confronted with explicit political criticism. Significant examples of the social angle are the songs “Warning” and “Fashion Victim”, which illustrate very well the way Billie Joe Armstrong obviously wanted to go in song-writing (cf. pages 8-9): he consciously wanted to make a bold statement. The prime example of both political and social criticism on Warning is the “record’s standout track” (Spitz 2006: 141) “Minority” which will be dealt with in detail later on. A song which obliquely combines the two is “Macy’s Day Parade”, which clearly alludes to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 19 . The song is hard on commercialism and thus tries to reveal that it is nothing that can make people truly happy: “It’s a lifetime guarantee / Stuffed in a coffin 10% more free / Red light special at the mausoleum”. The lyrics imply that the economy as well as the government fails to present people with legitimate hope: “What’s the consolation prize? / Economy sized dreams of hope”. However, hope is something that all people need, and something that the speaker of the song has come to realize is more important than any material goods can be: “When I was a kid I thought / I wanted all the things that I haven’t got / Oh, but I learned the hardest way / […] / ‘Cause I’m thinking ‘bout a brand new hope / The one I’ve never known / ‘Cause now I know / It’s all that I wanted”. Although the new album meant considerable development in terms of music and also lyrics, the band’s creative effort was little – to not – appreciated by fans and critics. More precisely, it evoked a considerable controversy among all of them, without even being as daring as American Idiot concerning both music and lyrics. In the case of fellow musicians, for instance, Fat Mike of NOFX calls Warning Green Day’s worse album, whereas Joel Madden of claims that they thought it “was one of their best records” (ibid.: 145). The general dissent does not end here. Not even music guides did agree on a concordant opinion about this album. On the one hand, The Rough Guide to Rock calls it “a half-hearted folk-infused album” and adds that “alongside relative newcomers such as The Bloodhound Gang and Blink 182, even die-hard fans might think Green Day have started to sound like dweebs” (Buckley 2003: 452). Although this word choice might appear exaggerated and

19 Interestingly, the of “Minority” shows the band performing on a parade float, like the ones used at the Macy’s Day Parade. There are even balloon versions of the three band members. Except for a few people who march with the float – the minority – the streets are completely empty. At the end of the video the band destroys the float and the balloons are released into the sky; a tradition that is now long gone at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

47 imprudent to a certain extent, it is a fact that Warning performed comparatively poorly in sales figures. However, there were also reviews that managed to look beyond numbers, like the All Music Guide to Rock (Bogdanov et al. 2002: 485; my emphases):

Apparently, the success of that ballad [“Good Riddance (Time of your Life)”] freed the band from any classifications or stigmas , letting them feel like they could do anything they wanted on their fifth album, Warning . They responded by embracing their fondness for pop and making the best damn album they’ve ever made. There’s a sense of fearlessness on Warning , as if the band didn’t care if the album wasn’t punk enough, or whether it produced a cross-platform hit. […] [This record] finds the band at a peak of songcraft and performance , doing it all without a trace of self- consciousness. It’s the first great pure pop album of the new millennium.

Even though not that many people bought the album in the first place, the majority of fans has obviously come to realize that Warning was maybe wrongly unappreciated, i.e. for the wrong reasons. That is why, almost ten years after its release, the record made it on the “Readers’ Rock List: Most Underrated Album of the Decade” ( 2009). Warning is the seventeenth most underrated album on this list, to be precise. When Billie Joe Armstrong was asked by (Kelham 2009: 58) if he ever thought that the band’s best days were gone before American Idiot came out, that is, after the release of Warning , he answered:

I’ve always believed in our records and I think around ‘Warning’ we hit our smallest core fan base but it was still a big audience and we were never unhappy with that. […] With any album, you put in the best you can and you dig further than ever before and then you put it out never really knowing what will happen to your band. […] it is all part of the adventure.

Regardless of the album’s reception in 2000, it has virtually become a secret favorite among Green Day fans by now. “Minority” is a classic that is played – and almost celebrated – at every concert. “Waiting”, a “gorgeous retro-pop lament” (Spitz 2006: 143), has become famous (at least among die-hard fans) for the line “Better thank your lucky stars”, which has verifiably inspired more than just one fan tattoo. The song also includes the significant line “Dawning of a new era”, which could not only be seen as an allusion to the new millennium, but as an unintentional reference to Green Day’s music itself. American Idiot and 21 st Century Breakdown were yet to come – and with them the band’s core fan base should rise to breathtaking numbers.

48 4.2 “Down with the moral majority …”

“… ‘Cause I want to be the minority”. As has been mentioned above, “Minority” does not include the band’s boldest political and social criticism of all time, but in 2000, “[i]t was Green Day’s most overt political statement to date” (ibid.: 141) and, most significantly, “it was certainly not another ‘pot song’ or a ‘girl song’ or a ‘shit song’” (ibid.). “Minority” starts with a lively folk guitar intro after which a single drum beat makes the chorus explode on the audience: “I want to be the minority / I don’t need your authority / Down with the moral majority / ‘Cause I want to be the minority”. When listening to these lyrics for the first time, one might not yet recognize “Minority” as a song with a political message. It would even be possible that the listener reminisces about former Green Day themes like the anxiety about growing up and teenage frustration; an interpretation that would definitely be appropriate for the chorus. It seems as if the speaker directly addresses another person: “I don’t need your authority”. Doubtlessly, this line could be uttered by a rebellious teenager. So far, it is primarily the line “Down with the moral majority” that suggests a political meaning of the song. In addition, the word choice in “I want to be the minority” is highly interesting since the speaker says that he wants to be the minority instead of just wanting to belong to or to be a part of it. Thus, this statement – which could be called the hook line of this song – sounds all the more urgent and important. It is not until the beginning of the first verse that “Minority” has to be analyzed from a political (but still social) point of view: “I pledge allegiance to the underworld / One nation under dog / There of which I stand alone / A face in the crowd / Unsung, against the mold / Without a doubt / / The only way I know”. What immediately stands out is that this first verse is obviously meant to disparage the Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” (Ushistory.org 1995-2010). Armstrong pledges his allegiance not to the flag but to the underworld. There is no “nation under God” but “One nation under dog”. In this case the speaker might refer to a whole nation full of outsiders in which the purported unity does not even exist, as well as to himself as an underdog as opposed to those who are sympathetic to, or better, to those who constitute the moral majority. In this respect, he does not mention any flag or “republic for which it stands” but uses the words “There of which I stand alone”. For him, there is no indivisible nation or at least none that is based on a true common fundament. He considers himself “A face in the

49 crowd / Unsung, against the mold”, and it seems as if he is not too displeased with the fact that he does not fit – or chose not to fit – into the aforesaid mold, which is in all likelihood an allusion to the moral majority. The speaker would definitely rather belong to the underworld, remain unknown, unappreciated and singled out than to be a part of a nation with – in his opinion – feigned “liberty and justice for all”. He concludes the first verse with the words “The only way I know”, which suggests that he never belonged, and never wanted to belong, to the majority. As opposed to the chorus, which is repeated after the first verse, he is not addressing anyone but shouting out a rallying cry – even if only to and for himself. As the chorus returns, so does the hook line “I want to be the minority”, which serves as a recurring emphasis of the fact that the speaker wants to be the minority, i.e. that he was not forced into it. At this point, it becomes clear that it must be the moral majority the speaker is addressing in the chorus, assuring that he does not need its authority. The verses are slightly calmer than the chorus, using drums and a folk guitar in the background. Concerning music and rhythm, the transitional bridge is equally powerful as the chorus, and its lyrics underscore the overall message of the song: “Stepped out of the line / Like a sheep runs from the herd / Marching out of time / To my own beat now / The only way I know”. The speaker “Stepped out of the line”, thus dissociating himself from the majority; an image which is skilfully compared to the one of a sheep running from the herd. The herd as such can obviously be interpreted as a metaphor for the above-mentioned mold and majority, in which everybody looks and acts the same – just like in a flock of sheep. The speaker, however, decides to march out of time, that is, to his own beat, stressing once again that this is the only way he knows. Following up the transitional bridge, we have drums playing a march rhythm in the second verse, “propelled by [the above-mentioned] folky harmonica line” (Spitz 2006: 141) in the background. Interestingly, the lyrics appear more cryptic than before: “One light, one mind / Flashing in the dark / Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts / ‘For crying out loud’ she screamed unto me / A free for all / Fuck’em all / You are your own sight”. On the one hand, the speaker might refer to himself as a social and political underdog when he says “One light, one mind / Flashing in the dark”, using this metaphor to describe a person who is willing to make a difference and stand up for their convictions against all odds and opponents. On the other hand, the ‘she’ mentioned in the fourth line of the second verse could be the flashing light in the dark – possibly a brief bow to the concept of a rebel girl. In any case, this light has a highly positive connotation in contrast to the linked images of darkness and silence, both of which appear to try to suffocate the light. The “thousand broken hearts”

50 could refer to people, maybe former lights, who tried to be self-reliant and defend their beliefs, but eventually ended up falling silent, thus yielding to the (social as well as political) moral majority. The fact that their silence is blinding should probably indicate that, at some point, it may seemingly shine brighter than the light itself, i.e. it seems to be invitingly easier to be mislead and follow the majority than to be singled out, but still your own person. The allusion to darkness obliquely reflects the paralyzing effect on those remaining silent when they should not, and the subsequent blindness and apathy concerning their own wishes and dreams and not least what is happening around them. They all end up in darkness, where everyone looks the same, except maybe for one or the other light… What effectively follows in line four of the second verse is obviously a rebel girl’s outcry addressed to the original speaker: “‘For crying out loud’ she screamed unto me / A free for all / Fuck’em all / You are your own sight”. Although there are no further quotation marks, it is likely that she is also quoted in (and therefore the speaker of) the last three lines, so that her wake-up call for the speaker continues until the end of the second verse. An alternative interpretation concerning the question who is actually speaking in these lines could be that the speaker himself is appealing to an addressee that is not defined further. Particularly in an intoxicating song like “Minority”, it is not unlikely that the ‘you’ is supposed to directly address the audience. In any case, what is more important is the underlying message as such. The main objective seems to be to make the addressee or addressees aware of their independence and uniqueness. Whereas “Fuck’em all” is self-explanatory in this respect, “A free for all” is most likely an allusion to a situation with total freedom of action, without any laws or other restrictions, in which everyone fights for what they want and practically do what they want. Although this expression is often used in a negative sense (cf. Merriam-Webster Dictionary , s.v. “free-for-all”), it supports the overall message of “Minority” quite well, especially regarding the criticism of authority. The line “You are your own sight” is apparently meant to assure the addressees that they do not need anyone who tells them what to do, because – in fact – they are all capable of being their own role model and of following their own rules. After the second verse, the chorus is repeated once more. It is followed by an instrumental interlude that is at first dominated by electric guitars and drums, but then switches to the song’s characteristic harmonica line, again accompanied by the above- mentioned drum march rhythm. Before we hear the chorus for the last time, the interlude merges into the second verse which is then sung all over again. Preceded by four times the line “I want to be the minority”, the song ends with the same climax with which it started,

51 with the folk guitar intro becoming the outro, and thus providing the perfect frame for a highly elaborate and vibrant punk rock anthem.

Even though, back then, Green Day’s truly explicit political statements were still written in the stars, “Minority” definitely presents the listener with a more than worthy first try. The song contains a subtle political as well as social statement since the theme of consciously disobeying authority is applicable in both cases. At this point, it is important to highlight that Green Day’s intention was never criticism for criticism's sake. In their lyrics they do not only scrutinize authority and institution as such, but primarily focus on passing severe criticism on people’s blind submission to certain authorities – in politics and modern society alike. (Later on, also religion would be called into question.) Green Day have always encouraged their audience to think independently and to set themselves apart from the majority. Moreover, they repeatedly stress that being a unique character all too often demands rebellion. This theme, which is of course implied in “Minority”, reaches its most extensive expression in “Know your Enemy” and therefore forms the common basis of these two songs. Although the diction is basically different, some very similar phrases can be found. For instance, we have “I don’t need your authority / Down with the moral majority”, “You are your own sight” and “Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts” in “Minority”, which could be seen as the equivalents of “Revolt against the honor to obey / Overthrow the effigy / The vast majority / Burning down the foreman of control”, “Silence is the enemy” and “Don’t be blinded by the lies / In your eyes” in “Know your Enemy”. An even more interesting comparison is the one based on the two hook lines of these songs: “ I want to be the minority” versus “Know your Enemy” (my emphases). In the first case we have an obvious focus on the speaker himself, not only because of the predominant first-person perspective in the song but mainly because the lyrics are centered on the character of the speaker. The second hook line, however, apparently appeals to another person, just like the rest of the song does. Whereas in “Minority” the speaker primarily talks about himself, “Know your Enemy” calls on others to “revolt against”, “overthrow” and “rally up the demons of [their souls]”. This comparison makes the most sense when having a brief look at the background of each song. “Minority” is a pre-Bush song, as it were. Back in 2000, not even someone working as closely together with the band as producer Rob Cavallo expected that songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong would think as politically as he did in the case of “Minority”. (That he was thinking more socially is practically self-evident on Warning .) As quoted at the beginning of this chapter, Cavallo was talking about a certain “foreshadowing of things to come” (Spitz

52 2006: 141). As a matter of fact, the band was “starting to think about how there was going to be a changing of the guard from Clinton to somebody else. It didn’t look good for Al Gore. It was just sort of a feeling that I knew there was going to be someone really conservative who was going to come into office” (ibid.: 141-142). It was probably this foreshadowing that encouraged Armstrong to write lyrics that – even if not by their fans – could be labelled offensive and unpatriotic. He felt that the imminent elections might bring forth a political shift to what he thought was the wrong (conservative) direction 20 . Armstrong definitely wanted to make an impact with “Minority”; an ambitious task that he accomplished by telling the world, or at least his audience, how he felt – which was in this case proud and convinced of being the minority as opposed to those unquestioningly loyal to the government. He was focusing on himself as a songwriter and the message he wanted to convey by sharing his point of view with people. In contrast, “Know your Enemy”, released nine years later and thus a post-Bush song, was more aimed at calling others into account and can therefore be called an urgent shout to the listeners: “So gimme gimme revolution”. With American Idiot , Armstrong gained remarkable self-confidence as a composer which, of course, had a considerable effect on his future song-writing. With “Know your Enemy” he did not only feel the confidence, but above all the need to explicitly encourage others to become aware of their actions and of the contribution they make (or do not make) to the well-being of their surroundings, their country, and, subsequently, the world. In retrospect, the beginning of the new millennium was the beginning of a highly problematic future for the United States. Nevertheless, the direction in which Green Day were going was doubtlessly the right one. The have always aspired to reach people with their music, which is a characteristic trait and even talent of the band that, in the first decade of the new millennium, gave rise to two undisputed masterpieces in punk rock.

20 In November 2000, George W. Bush was elected President of the United States for the first time. It was one of the closest elections in American History. He was re-elected in 2004.

53 5. The sons of rage and love

“I feel most powerful when I’m able to use my words as weapons rather than a Molotov cocktail.” (Billie Joe Armstrong, in Lynskey 2009: 50)

There might have been times when Billie Joe Armstrong felt that he did not have the knowledge and, more importantly, the courage to use his words as figurative weapons and make an explicit critical political statement (cf. quotation on page 8). However, with the release of American Idiot in 2004 at the latest, one could not even be sure that these times had ever existed.

“We’ve always tried to keep our ear to the ground and keep our eyes open to what’s going on,” Armstrong said in 2005. […] “And after [Bush] was elected, we watched the culture sort of sway. And that’s one reason why I was really taking my time writing songs to really {make an impact}. Instead of just writing an overly knee jerk reaction”. (Spitz 2006: 141-142)

Concerning 9/11 Armstrong reiterated that, as an artist, he was hesitant and did not want to speak too soon: “I know something’s going to come out of this, but right now I have to process things because it just seems so unreal” (ibid.: 147). It was probably for this reason that Green Day released two records while American Idiot was in the making. These were possibly intended to serve as temporary solutions or better “stopgap release[s]” (ibid.: 152), which had nothing to do with what was happening in their country at that time. First, there was the greatest hits album International Superhits! (2001), which – in addition to being a best-of – included two new songs: the aforementioned “Maria”, and “Poprocks & Coke”. An interesting fact about this greatest hits album is that it actually came out before Green Day’s second-best-selling album after Dookie : American Idiot . Second, the band released Shenanigans (2002), a compilation of B-sides and rarities. The album features for instance the cover “Outsider” and the instrumental “Espionage” that appeared on the soundtrack of : The Spy Who Shagged Me . Lyrically, the songs on Shenanigans could be interpreted as a regression to Green Day’s early years: “Three a.m. I’m drunk again / My head is standing underneath my puke / So make it stop / I’m getting off / […] / Well, slipped into a coma once again” (in “Suffocate”); “Ha ha you’re dead / The joke is over / You were an asshole / And now you’re gone” (in “Ha Ha you’re Dead”, the only song on the record that was previously unreleased). However, these

54 lyrics do not necessarily have to be labelled as a demerit. Shenanigans , like the title as such suggests, does not break new ground nor does it make any demands on the listener, and therefore constitutes a straightforward and highly entertaining punk record. Little is known about a curiosity that also happened in the time before American Idiot and was actually supposed to become Green Day’s new album: Cigarettes and Valentines . The master tapes of this record mysteriously disappeared, and although Green Day would have had the money to record the songs again, they did not. Apparently, they had arrived at the conclusion that this album was not irreplaceable, i.e. not their best work. The band members probably still had the modest success of Warning in the back of their heads and hence did not want to produce halfhearted music – also keeping in mind the enormous impact of 9/11, of course. Summing up, the most important fact about Cigarettes and Valentines 21 is that the few people who knew and talked about it agreed that it was not American Idiot (cf. Spitz 2006: 153).

5.1 American Idiot – the big oxymoron

In the first four years of the new millennium the members of Green Day had to mature in at least two ways. Personally, for example, they had to deal with divorce (Tré Cool was divorcing his second wife) and community service (Armstrong’s penalty for driving under the influence). Concerning their music, Armstrong, Dirnt and Cool were more and more starting to demand higher standards of their songs, but without wanting to – or being able to – force something that did not come naturally. Of course, such thing is easier said than done. By the time they had decided to make a bold political statement with their next record, Green Day were walking a tightrope. Billie Joe Armstrong once said the following about the difficulties of making a political record (Small 2005: 93):

When you start getting into your politics it’s like you have to be vulnerable and you have to be sort of sensitive. […] A lot of [the new album] is coming from trying to have a relationship between different people and yourself, but being surrounded by total chaos… I didn’t want to make people feel like I’m telling them what to do or come across as a sh*tty politician.

21 In the course of their 21 st Century Breakdown tour, Green Day played a song called “Cigarettes and Valentines” during some shows, which was supposedly part of the eponymous album. The song will be included on Green Day’s next live album Awesome As F**k , which will be released in March 2011.

55 Although Armstrong has always been writing songs from a highly personal perspective, now this perspective was calling for him to make an impact, and he was very well aware of that: “Well, f*** yeah I want to change the world to a certain extent, yeah. It needs to be changed, it needs a kick in the ass” (ibid.). It was a challenge that all band members were willing to accept, or as Mike Dirnt put it: “We were kind of all on the same page. […] let’s make a fucking bold statement and swing for the fences. If shit gets too safe, sometimes you just want to rattle the cage” (Lynskey 2009: 52). And rattle the cage they did. Interestingly enough, or better paradoxically, it all started with Mike Dirnt being alone in the studio, at first complaining about it, but then deciding to write “this thirty-second vaudeville song, […] and make it as grandiose as I could” (Spitz 2006: 159). Later on, Armstrong and Cool actually liked what Dirnt had produced in their absence and decided to add and connect more thirty- second pieces to what the other had written before. What had started as a fun song-writing exercise was getting serious and eventually became the over nine-minute song “Homecoming” on American Idiot . The song consists of five parts. Dirnt wrote his part exactly about the situation in which he wrote it. It is probably for this reason that it opens “quite inauspiciously” (ibid.): “I fell asleep while watching Spike TV / After 10 cups of coffee / And you’re still not here / Dreaming of a song / But something went wrong / And I can’t tell anyone / ‘Cus no one’s here”. Still, it became the third part of the album version of “Homecoming” and (maybe with a little wink) was called “III. Nobody Likes You”. Cool’s part, “IV. Rock ‘n’ Roll Girlfriend”, was – naturally – a humorous take on his second divorce: “I got a rock ‘n’ roll band / I got a rock ‘n’ roll life / I got a rock ‘n’ roll girlfriend / And another ex-wife”. The band skilfully connected all the pieces and lyrics that were eminently inspired by their personal lives to a song that should, later on, fit perfectly into the texture and the overall story line of the concept album and punk rock opera American Idiot . With “Homecoming”, Green Day had “relocated the freedom to screw around and have fun” (Spitz 2006: 159), or in their own words: “We were like, ‘it’s fun, it’s dramatic, we feel like we’re living up to our ambitions and expectations as musicians, so let’s just do it.’ I think the biggest doubt was that people would think we’re f***ing crazy” (Small 2005: 83). Armstrong also said that “We decided we were going to be the biggest, best band in the world or fall flat on our faces” (ibid.: 85). Looking back, it seems utterly absurd that a highly ambitious opus like American Idiot started in the exceptionally unexpected way it did. “The oxymoronic nature of a punk-rock opera was so crazy it couldn’t help but fail. But it didn’t. It ruled” (ibid.: 90).

56 As a matter of fact, the overwhelming majority of fans and critics loved American Idiot . Needless to say there were also people who did not like the album and could not identify with its message. In this respect, “Holiday” constitutes a special case. Alongside “American Idiot” it is the most openly aggressive and apocalyptic song on the album, and the one that is probably most disdained by differently minded people. The explanation can already be found in the lyrics of the first verse: “Hear the sound of the falling rain / Coming down like an Armageddon flame / The shame / The ones who died without a name / Hear the dogs howling out of key / To a hymn called ‘Faith and Misery’ / And bleed / The lost the war today”. Even people who did not support Bush may have felt offended by Green Day’s lyrics. Many accused them of being anti-American. However, this was not at all the message the band wanted to deliver. During some of their shows on the American Idiot tour, Billie Joe Armstrong clarified the matter prior to playing “Holiday”: “And this next song’s a big ‘fuck you’ to all the politicians. This song’s called ‘Holiday’! This song is not anti-American; it’s anti-war!” ( Bullet in a Bible 2005 22 ). With lines that tell us about dogs howling to “a hymn called ‘Faith and Misery’”, Armstrong was starting to be hard not only on politicians, but also on institutionalized religion. In fact, George W. Bush embodied both for him and the band. Not only did they think of him as a despicable politician who was ruining their country, but also as a religious – which was just as abhorrent in their eyes. Armstrong’s rage about Bush’s extremist views was probably what generated his use of the semantic opposition “Faith and Misery”. Moreover, he fundamentally enjoys working with double meanings (cf. page 11), including (in his case) everything from oppositions or antitheses to oxymora – a passion he largely lived out on American Idiot , as we will see later on. From the example of “Faith and Misery” it can be observed that Armstrong opposes, or better combines, two terms that basically contradict each other. Where faith is, there should be hope and confidence, not misery. However, referring to Bush’s religious ethos, Green Day’s front man wants to emphasize that fanatic religious belief can make people do things out of the wrong reasons, because they justify their unjustifiable actions (no matter how harmful to others) with their faith and, above all, expect others to think the same way. In Armstrong’s opinion, such an attitude inevitably leads to misery and suffering. He would probably – at least to a certain extent – agree with Iain M. Banks, a Scottish writer, who said that “faith is wrong, [and that] belief without reason and question is just evil ” (Celebatheists.com 2005; my emphasis). Generally, Billie Joe Armstrong’s and Green Day’s

22 This quotation is taken from Green Day’s live album Bullet in a Bible , recorded in 2005 at the in the United Kingdom.

57 criticism of faith fanatics and institutionalized religion is still fairly restrained on American Idiot (compared to the far more explicit statements on 21 st Century Breakdown ) – but it is obviously there. After all, Green Day called their live album from the American Idiot tour Bullet in a Bible . As has been briefly mentioned above, the band therefore had to deal with controversy and criticism themselves. Yet, they had already built up an enormous self-confidence, i.e. they were actually proud of their courage and willing to take responsibility for what they were saying with their lyrics. One thing they repeatedly wanted to express was that they were trying to make a difference at a time when politics as well as religion failed to offer people hope and comfort, but rather spread lies, aggression, agitation and pure angst: “I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On holiday,” (my emphasis) sings Armstrong in the chorus of “Holiday”. He draws attention to the fact that there is not an infinite number of chances to atone for our mistakes. It is “the dawning of the rest of our lives”. One reason why he uses the term ‘holiday’ might be that he wants to refer to the exceptional circumstances during the , in other words, to a situation that was far from everyday or normal life. Another reason could be that by “This is our lives on holiday” (the last line of the song) he is alluding to people trying to deny reality and to figuratively run away and go on a holiday from the truth. The truth was that their countrymen were fighting and dying for a cause that no one who actually thought about it – and dared to question the authorities – could really understand. Summing up here, the underlying message of “This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On holiday” might be that if we do not face reality and, despite all confusion and paranoia, do not even try to limit the damage that has already been caused, it might soon be too late – and there might be nothing and no one left to save. The keen lyrics of the song continue in the second verse: “[…] / Can I get another Amen? / There’s a flag wrapped around a score of men / A gag / A plastic bag on a monument”. Again, Armstrong obviously refers to “The ones who died without a name”. It even seems as if he wanted to compare military funerals, where the American flag is draped over the coffin, to a gag – like putting “A plastic bag on a monument”. In the American Idiot booklet the words “Amen”, “flag” and “plastic bag” are in bold print, which supports this interpretation to a considerable extent. Therefore, one could even go as far as to assume that the flag is equated with a plastic bag in this case. When Armstrong was writing this song, he was maybe already thinking of military funerals as a charade since they were apparently becoming a routine in his country at the beginning of the twenty-first century. “Can I get

58 another Amen?” is another verbal attack against the conservative Christian right-wing justification of the war, which clearly illegitimate from Armstrong’s point of view. “Holiday” reaches its climax and boldest moment in the bridge. Armstrong “almost couldn’t believe he was saying something so direct. He was not scared as much as he was thinking ‘Can I get away with that?’” (Spitz 2006: 166): “Zieg heil to the president Gasman / Bombs away is your punishment / Pulverize the Eiffel towers / Who criticize your government / Bang bang goes the broken glass / Kill all the fags that don’t agree / Trials by fire setting fire / Is not a way that’s meant for me”. In his lyrics, Green Day’s front man audaciously evokes memories of Nazi terror by using the words of the Hitler salute, “Zieg heil” (misspelt with a ‘Z’), to refer to the Bush administration. He also does so by singing “Now everybody do the propaganda” in “American Idiot”. Of course, George W. Bush (like Hitler) thought that he was doing the right thing with the War on Terrorism, and had no understanding for people or countries who did not share his views. With “Pulverize the Eiffel towers / Who criticize your government”, Armstrong points out the fact that France’s former president, Jacques Chirac, refused to support Bush on his ‘mission’. In the next lines, like in the ones before, he continues the lyrics from a Bush supporter’s perspective: “Bang bang goes the broken glass / Kill all the fags that don’t agree”. Then, however, he returns to the perspective that is most likely his own (i.e. the one we also find in the chorus of the song), and stresses that “Trials by fire setting fire / Is not a way that’s meant for me”. What Armstrong wants to express with these two lines is precisely what he said in the introductory quotation of this chapter: “I feel most powerful when I’m able to use my words as weapons rather than a Molotov cocktail” (Lynskey 2009: 50). The fundament of a trial should be justice, probably powerful words, but not real weapons, trials by fire 23 or setting fires. Green Day evidently condemn the attacks initiated by George W. Bush and – especially in their lyrics – leave no doubt about how unethical, unjustifiable and wrong they were in their opinion.

The lyrics of “Holiday” and “American Idiot” were definitely considered an enormous affront by many people, especially by ‘die-hard’ (or even fanatic) patriots. Both are extremely powerful songs concerning their lyrics and music. Still, “Holiday” appears to have a more

23 A trial by fire, or trial by ordeal, can be “1: a primitive means used to determine guilt or innocence by submitting the accused to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under supernatural control < ordeal by fire>; 2: a severe trial or experience” ( Merriam-Webster Dictionary , s.v. “ordeal”). Apparently, the latter is the more contemporary meaning of the word and refers, for example, to a situation which tests the way a person performs certain tasks under pressure. In “Holiday”, however, Green Day were – without much doubt – thinking of the first definition.

59 serious and dramatic character, whereas “American Idiot” sounds more provocative in that it is only partially centered on denunciating George W. Bush, and rather focuses on holding up a mirror to society. Thus, the song implies that Bush could not have proceeded without people supporting him. Even when Green Day were not even yet sure about doing a rock opera, they knew that they “wanted to tie [the album] into the political atmosphere of what was going on” (Spitz 2006: 160). Billie Joe Armstrong had decided to use his words as weapons – and he chose his weapons well: “Don’t want to be an American idiot / Don’t want a nation under the new mania / And can you hear the sound of hysteria? / The subliminal mind fuck America”. The first line of the song already includes one of the boldest statements of the whole album: Armstrong angrily bursts out that he does not want to be an American idiot – not just any idiot. He senses a “new mania” and “hysteria” in his country of which he does not want to be a part of, and of which he does not want others to be a part of either. Interestingly, Armstrong does not only make these lines sound angry but also desperate, as if he wanted to express how hard it is to remain clear-minded and rational under “The subliminal mind fuck America”. With this particular line (and maybe also by choosing the diction “ sound of hysteria”; my emphasis), he definitely wants to point a finger at the national media coverage of the Iraq War: “There was something apocalyptic about the whole thing: Oh my God, the country is unravelling ! And it was shocking. I never thought I’d see a war brought to you on TV, 24 hours a day, and it became like entertainment” (Lynskey 2009: 50; 52). However, the biggest problem was not even that the war was seemingly presented as entertainment to the masses; there were also widespread accusations of propaganda, which apparently involved and caused the above-mentioned “new mania” and “hysteria”. Throughout the whole song, Armstrong vents his anger and frustration about the ongoing brainwash in the media, i.e. what he calls “The subliminal mind fuck America”. In he chorus of “American Idiot” he sings: “Welcome to a new kind of tension / All across the alienation / Where everything isn’t meant to be ok / Television dreams of tomorrow / We’re not the ones meant to follow / For that’s enough to argue”. When he speaks about “a new kind of tension”, Billie Joe Armstrong allusively combines several factors related to the Bush administration (9/11, the Patriot Act, Afghanistan, Iraq, &c.), and the way the media dealt with them, in one word: tension. His worries are directed at his country and naturally to the people living in it, because he fears that an entire nation could lapse into tension and hysteria; a concern that is definitely not without cause. A highly interesting fact about the next line, “All across the alienation”, is that the lyrics reprinted on The Green Day Authority (2010), the biggest non-official Green Day website, say “alien nation”, whereas “alienation”

60 can be found in the American Idiot booklet. Moreover, in the latter case, a part of the word is in bold print: “alie nation ”. On the one hand, the songwriter might have wanted to point out alienation as the inevitable consequence of the persistent tension that has been imposed on people in the United States ever since the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, he maybe wanted to express his disappointment about the fact that apparently a whole nation was frustrated and upset with the government, but that president Bush still had enough supporters to become re- elected. This might have converted his country into an alien nation for Armstrong; a nation he probably felt that he could no longer (at least no longer easily) identify with. In any case, “alienation” (with or without bold print) seems to refer to a place – real (like a country or a nation) or figurative (like an emotional state) – “Where everything isn’t meant to be ok” (my emphasis). “Television dreams of tomorrow” alludes once more to the war propaganda on television, which made many people believe in the war as a necessity for a brighter future of their country. In the penultimate line of the chorus there is suddenly a ‘we’ – “We’re not the ones meant to follow” – which eventually reminds us to have a closer look at the perspective from which the song is written. The first thing that can be noticed is the predominant first-person point of view in the verses, most likely that of a male speaker again, which largely reflects Armstrong’s opinions: “Don’t want to be an American idiot” &c. In the third line of the first verse, the speaker asks, “And can you hear the sound of hysteria?” and thus implies that he is not speaking to himself but to another person or even to many people he wants to share his views with. The fifth line of the chorus suggests that there is supposed to be more than one addressee: “We’re not the ones meant to follow”. In all likelihood, this ‘we’ is used to directly address and appeal to the audience and has a similar message as the one that can be found in “Minority”: Form your opinion independently, question the information the media delivers and do not follow the authorities blindly – “For that’s enough to argue”. By choosing the word ‘we’ instead of ‘you’, Armstrong does not even exclude himself from the message of this line, which could be interpreted as an advice as well as an exhortation. Therefore, the listeners do not get the feeling that they are told what to do, but that someone is trying to communicate with them who is just as worried as they are, and equally at risk to be misled by the media’s information overload. This is exactly what makes “American Idiot” such a powerful and incredibly accessible song: “[It] was Armstrong’s candid acknowledgement that he could easily have been an American idiot himself. He wrote from the point of view of an anxious spectator watching the news, swamped by dismaying information, and wondering where to go from there” (Lynskey 2009: 52).

61 Generally, it is not at all easy to define the boldest or even the most shocking moments in the song and on the album American Idiot , simply because there seems to be an infinite number of them. Still, there are some statements that exceed all others in audaciousness – like the ones in the second verse of “American Idiot”: “Maybe I’m the faggot America / I’m not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda! / And sing along to the age of paranoia”. With ‘faggot’ being a pejorative term for a male homosexual, one cannot help but take a (maybe slightly appalled) step back, and take the time to think about what Billie Joe Armstrong really wanted to express by using this term. In an interview with The Advocate , an American gay and lesbian newsmagazine, he admitted that “[t]here was a fear of people thinking I was using {‘faggot’} in a derogatory way, but I thought of it as empowering” (Small 2005: 86). In order to understand why he thought of the word ‘faggot’ as empowering in his song, we need to remember that Bush proposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004.24 Therefore, Armstrong’s lyrics are “certainly a show of solidarity with the [country’s] gay community as much as a direct attack on the queer-bashing moral majority” (Spitz 2006: 172). With the first two lines of the second verse he apparently wants to stress that he would rather belong to a group – a minority – that is not accepted or even oppressed by society and politics (“Maybe I’m the faggot America”) than to “a redneck agenda”. Frequently – and in Armstrong’s lyrics exclusively – used as a disparaging term, a redneck is “a white member of the Southern rural laboring class” ( Merriam-Webster Dictionary , s.v. “redneck”) who is often said to have conservative and bigoted views, especially concerning the approval of segregation and the rejection of gay rights. Furthermore, Armstrong explains that “the rednecks that are in office right now seem to feel that liberating people means taking their culture from them and sticking ours in” (Small 2005: 87). “American Idiot” is such a powerful and inexorable protest song that Green Day’s front man says that he

[…] wasn’t surprised that they were gonna censor part of it […]. What was surprising to me was how some places were censoring the word ‘redneck’. I thought that was kind of cool actually. Oh there was one radio station that won’t play the song, and when asked why […] they said because we have a ‘redneck agenda’. (Spitz 2006: 172)

The next two lines continue the second verse nearly as provocatively as it started and are obviously meant to enforce the song’s overall attack on politics and the media turning patriots

24 Armstrong also expresses his objection to Bush’s views on this matter in “Holiday” with the line “Kill all the fags that don’t agree”, which he obviously wrote from Bush’s or a Bush supporter’s perspective (cf. page 59).

62 into paranoiacs: “Now everybody do the propaganda! / And sing along to the age of paranoia”. After the second verse the chorus is repeated. What follows is an instrumental section introduced by the same sharp drum beat that marks the transition between the first chorus and the second verse. It goes on with the characteristic guitar riff of “American Idiot”, which is not only used to begin the song, but also to accompany both verses and the bridge. The instrumental section remains dominated by clanging electric guitars until it is followed by the bridge, which sounds similar to the verses, only this time the drums predominate and the guitar can be heard in the background: “Don’t want to be an American idiot / One nation controlled by the media / Information age of hysteria / Calling out to idiot America”. The lyrics of the bridge are largely self-explanatory and effectively summarize the song. The speaker repeats that he does not want to be an American idiot and that the American nation (at least the major part of it) is currently controlled by the media, which turns the difficult times for the United States and its inhabitants into the “Information age of hysteria”. The underlying message of the line “Calling out to idiot America” probably is that the media is mainly addressing “idiot America”, which no one necessarily has to be a part of. Everybody has the choice whether they want to belong to this group of people or not. Most importantly, everybody has to make this choice, because hardly anyone is immune and invulnerable to the subliminal power of hysteria and paranoia. As has been mentioned above, the speaker includes himself in this risk group, to which basically a whole nation belongs. Mike Dirnt explains that with “all the information being thrown at you and then throw this war on top of it, we’ve had enough and we’re ready to say ‘I feel confused and disenfranchised.’ As individuals we feel like we’re losing our individuality” (Spitz 2006: 162). Interestingly, this is something that contributes to the oxymoronic nature of American Idiot , in that feelings of confusion, disenfranchisement and social alienation resulted in angry and shockingly honest protest songs. Its urgency and enormous expressiveness are what makes it so easy for the listener to identify with the message of “American Idiot” (as well as of the whole album) and to feel directly addressed. To sum up here, “Calling out to idiot America” could also be seen as a link to the line “We’re not the ones meant to follow”, drawing once more attention to the fact that no one has to be the “idiot America”, i.e. everyone has to assume responsibility and, above all, has the chance to make a difference. At the end of the bridge, the song bursts into the chorus once more, which then concludes “American Idiot” with the same energy that characterizes the whole song. “‘It sounded like the title track,’ Cavallo remembers. ‘Like a big important way to start a record.

63 It kind of encompasses the meaning of the whole thing’” (ibid.). Despite the abovementioned censorship, the message of (the song and the album) American Idiot could not be silenced. People all over the world listened to it. “The most gratifying thing was that we weren’t preaching to the choir. We were saying something like, Maybe I’m the faggot America and that shit’s getting played on the radio! I feel like we were breaking new ground”, says Armstrong (Lynskey 2009: 50). Green Day could definitely not have conveyed their statements differently, that is, more moderately like for instance in “Minority”, which “was a Clinton-era song. ‘American Idiot’ was pure Bush 2” (Spitz 2006: 161). In 2004, American Idiot was Green Day’s most ambitious and progressive work to date. “It was like Warning never happened; it was almost as if Dookie hadn’t either. That’s how new this ‘nineties band’ seemed” (ibid.:172). Not only did this album have nine-minute songs (“Jesus of Suburbia” and “Homecoming”) and a sophisticated social and political message, it also had characters and a story.

5.2 From the center of the earth to the end of the world

When writing American Idiot , Green Day must already have had some stage version in mind. Billie Joe Armstrong once said that there was “one journalist who mentioned that we were taking it to Broadway, and that just seemed really corny. We’re going to Broadway! It would be so Off-Broadway” (ibid.: 181). What started at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009 became the Broadway musical American Idiot in 2010. Nowadays, rumor has it that there is already serious talk of a film version. Armstrong repeatedly stresses in interviews that the story line is about a country in transition and, hence, about people in transition. In short, “American Idiot is the story of three lifelong friends, forced to choose between their dreams and the safety of suburbia. Their quest to rediscover their faith in God and country leads them on the most exhilarating journey of the Broadway season” (American Idiot on Broadway 2011). Naturally, the story presents itself as more comprehensible and linear in the musical than it does on the album as such. 25 The three main characters are Jesus of Suburbia (the only one who belongs to the three lifelong friends that have just been mentioned), St. Jimmy and Whatsername. The girl was probably called Whatsername because in the eponymous (last) song on the album the speaker remarks, “I

25 For this paper, relevant elements of the story will be selected to support the targeted analysis of some of the lyrics. The entire plot will not be revealed.

64 remember the face / But I can’t recall the name / Now I wonder how Whatsername has been”. In the case of Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy an obvious, albeit oblique, religious criticism can be found in the choice of names, especially in that of the latter character. St. Jimmy is not a saint at all, but the malevolent and seductive villain of the story. In addition to calling one character ‘Jesus’ and the other one a saint, there are lyrics that are equally, if not more provoking (and from a believer’s point of view probably even blasphemous): “No one ever died for my sins in hell / As far as I can tell / At least the ones I got away with”, says Jesus of Suburbia himself in the eponymous song. Firstly, these lines attack the fundamental Christian belief that Jesus Christ died for our sins and our salvation. The Jesus of Suburbia apparently does not feel this way. Secondly, the speaker also mentions hell and the fact that there are sins he got away with, which suggests that he does not believe in the damnation of sinners either. 26 Maybe he once believed in God, but lost his faith because he was disappointed in life. Now he is struggling to rediscover faith as such – perhaps in God, but primarily in himself. In spite of the characters – who are not only mentioned but, above all, speaking in and through the lyrics – most listeners might tend to directly associate the content of the lyrics with Green Day’s lives, so that it never seems to be an entirely fictitious story. Possibly, it was even Armstrong’s intention to write the songs on American Idiot in a way that the real- life background was, in fact, put in the foreground. The song “Jesus of Suburbia” is approximately nine minutes long and consists of five parts. It is basically about who the Jesus of Suburbia is and where he comes from, namely the suburbs. “‘It’s that lost feeling,’ Armstrong explains. ‘Hanging out at the 7-Eleven. Disenfranchised. Alienated’” (Spitz 2006: 2). When he wrote the lyrics to this song, Billie Joe Armstrong obviously thought about his hometown Rodeo and, more generally, about the lack of perspectives of someone growing up in the suburbs. Therefore, Jesus of Suburbia is definitely a character the songwriter strongly identifies with. He is the speaker of the first part of the song 27 , which is itself called “I. Jesus of Suburbia”: “I’m the son of rage and love / The Jesus of suburbia / […] / But there’s nothing wrong with me / This is how I’m supposed to be / In a land of make believe / That don’t believe in me”. He is obviously a very self-confident person who is aware of the restrictions his hometown imposes on his life. He describes this town in more detail in the second part of the song, “II. City of the Damned”: “At the center of the earth / In the parking lot / Of the 7-11 where I was taught / The motto was just a lie / It

26 This second aspect most likely stems from Billie Joe Armstrong’s early experiences with religion (cf. page 76). 27 Although the perspective seems to change slightly throughout the song, Jesus of Suburbia is definitely the main speaker.

65 says ‘Home is where your heart is’ / But what a shame / ‘Cause everyone’s heart doesn’t beat the same”. The speaker claims that, for the ones growing up in this town, something like the parking lot of the local 7-Eleven might be their supposed “center of the earth”. However, for him, this place does not really feel like home anymore – or at least not like the place where he wants to spend the rest of his life. When he talks about reading a graffiti “In the bathroom stall / Like the holy scriptures in a shopping mall”, he realizes that “It didn’t say much / But it only confirmed that / The center of the earth / Is the end of the world”. Another important line of this part of the song says “No one really seems to care”. For all these reasons, i.e. the lack of perspectives and the fact that nobody seems to care about it, leaving home is inevitable for the speaker. In other words, he has come to realize that he is not the Jesus of Suburbia 28 , i.e. that his hometown is not a place where he can achieve something or make a difference. In fact, he has as little rights and bright prospects as anyone else living there. For him, the isolation and the supposed idyll of the suburbs do not make him feel safe but threaten to suffocate him, and eventually make him leave: “To live and not to breathe / Is to die in tragedy / To run, to run away / To find what you believe”. Just like Billie Joe Armstrong, Jesus of Suburbia took control over his life by leaving home in order to find what he believes in. As has been mentioned above, this could mean God, himself or simply his future. Armstrong’s roots and past are not the only connection between him and Jesus of Suburbia. The song and the character also reflect his and the band’s recent past, in that they suddenly felt disenfranchised and maybe even insecure with George W. Bush in office. Just like the character in his hometown, they were losing faith in their country. Green Day knew there had to be a rebellion, but at first they were not sure how to do it right. In this context, Armstrong explains that when Jesus of Suburbia reaches the city, “[h]e starts dealing with what true rebellion means. Rebellion could be disguised as self-destruction. You get involved with drugs or self-mutilation. Or it could mean you end up following your own beliefs or ethics. He’s sort of torn” (Spitz 2006: 163-164). While struggling with this inner conflict, Jesus of Suburbia meets St. Jimmy, who seemingly cares about him and wants to help him. In fact, he leads him into self-destruction and denial. Jesus no longer seems to care about carrying his life in his own hands, but rather enjoys the company of someone who makes him forget his problems and worries. The song “St. Jimmy” tells the listeners who this “charismatic scumbag” (ibid.: 164), as Mike Dirnt describes him, essentially is: “My name is Jimmy and you better not wear it out / Suicide

28 In the musical the character’s name is Johnny, so that ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ is not as much a name as it is a description of who Johnny is.

66 commando that your momma talked about / […] / I’m the patron saint of the denial / With an angel face and a taste for suicidal / […] / It’s comedy and tragedy / It’s St. Jimmy / And that’s my name” (my emphasis). Because of the way the listeners get to know St. Jimmy, he could be called a devil in disguise.29 He is an intoxicating person – in every possible sense of the word – who easily attracts people with his “angel face” and persuasive power. St. Jimmy is an antithetical character by all accounts, which makes him the perfect counterpart and antagonist of Jesus of Suburbia, “the son of rage and love”. He is “comedy and tragedy” and calls himself “a teenage assassin executing some fun”, who has an obvious taste for self- destruction and does not hesitate to lead others on the same path. At first, there is comedy (which involves drugs and having fun), a situation in which St. Jimmy pretends to take all the pressure from Jesus of Suburbia by imposing a reckless lifestyle on him. Jesus enjoys not having to face all the inconsistencies in his life. St. Jimmy and the drugs intoxicate him and numb him to what is happening in real life. In the song “Give Me Novacaine”, which directly follows “St. Jimmy” on the album, he says the following: “Out of body and out of mind / Kiss the demons out of my dreams / I get the funny feeling that’s alright / Jimmy says it’s better than here / […] / Tell me Jimmy I won’t feel a thing / Give me novacaine”. He slips into denial and does not only forget about his problems, but also about his dreams. With the line “Kiss the demons out of my dreams” Jesus of Suburbia might already be referring to Whatsername, the girl he falls in love with. Like other rebel girls, she is a challenging character, definitely a rebel 30 , but not in the heedless and suicidal way of St. Jimmy. Jesus is torn between these two worlds (cf. Spitz 2006: 164), but does not manage to detach himself from St. Jimmy, which eventually and inevitably leads him into tragedy. He realizes too late that he has carelessly jeopardized his relationship with Whatsername and ends up losing her.31

Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy are two fundamentally different, but yet so similar characters. Basically, they want completely different things in life. However, they both have an innate antagonistic nature, which is probably the reason why Jesus is fatally attracted to St. Jimmy. As opposed to Jimmy, who acts out “comedy and tragedy” alike and with firm conviction, Jesus of Suburbia is indecisive. He is a torn character, “the son of rage and love”, and is not sure whether to devote himself entirely to the rage St. Jimmy foments, or rather to

29 St. Jimmy might even be inspired by Goethe’s Mephisto, especially regarding the designation of “patron saint of the denial ” (my emphasis). 30 Whatsername is described in the song “She’s a Rebel” on American Idiot (cf. page 37). 31 Their separation is thematized in the songs “Letterbomb” and “Whatsername”. In the latter, Jesus of Suburbia says with a certain melancholy, “Forgetting you but not the time”.

67 the love he receives from Whatsername. In the end, as has been indicated above, she decides for him and leaves him. On the one hand, the opposition of Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy can be interpreted as the one of a potentially good character versus the villain of the story. On the other hand, it can be read as the juxtaposition of two parts of the same personality, i.e. St. Jimmy as the dark and heedless alter ego of Jesus of Suburbia. Although both characters are generally treated with the same elaborateness and detail in the lyrics, Jesus of Suburbia turns out to be the center of attention, because of which it makes more sense to call St. Jimmy his alter ego, rather than that vice versa. Lyrics that support this interpretation to a certain extent can be found in “Homecoming”. In the first part of the song, “I. The Death of St. Jimmy”, the listener learns about Jesus of Suburbia’s (former) dependency on St. Jimmy, and that he has obviously come to realize that all he offered him was the suppression of real life, i.e. of his problems as well as of his hopes and dreams: “In the streets of shame / Where you’ve lost your dreams in the rain / There’s no sign of hope / The stems and seeds of the last of the dope / […] / Jimmy died today / He blew his brains out into the bay / In the state of mind / It’s my own private suicide ” (my emphases). With St. Jimmy, a part of him – his alter ego, the evil voice in the back of his head, or just Jimmy’s bad influence on him – died, too. In this regard, it is not essential to determine if St. Jimmy actually died as a character or in the sense of a certain “state of mind”. For Jesus of Suburbia, the consequences remain the same. He gets the chance to start anew and to resume the search for the person he initially wanted to become. Paradoxically, it appears to be the separation from Whatsername that caused him to rethink his relations to St. Jimmy. In “Whatsername”, Jesus as the speaker states that “She went away and then I took a different path”. Her rebellion had “a more love-driven side to [it], which is following your beliefs and your ethics. And that’s where Jesus of Suburbia really wants to go” (Small 2005: 90). To sum up, it seems as if the several oppositions that can be found in the lyrics on American Idiot are meant to reflect and emphasize the primary contrast – or even conflict – between Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy. Examples are “rage and love”, “comedy and tragedy”, “an angel face and a taste for suicidal”, as well as “faith and misery” and “war and peace”. However different or contradictory they are, the parts of each opposition are presented as two parts of a whole, maybe even inseparable in the sense that without the one, the other would not even exist. Jesus of Suburbia, for instance, is the son of both , rage and love. Moreover, he would not be the same person without St. Jimmy and Whatsername, the one embodying the bad and the other one the good element, both of which shaped his character. On the one hand, all this happens on a highly universal level. As has been mentioned above,

68 American Idiot is about people in transition. There are the themes of rebellion and growing up, but also the one of identity, in that a transition might imply a certain lack of identity and consequently the search for it. Of course, there are positive and negative aspects about transition and the search for one’s identity. The bottom line is that all our experiences and mistakes make us who we are – just like in the case of Jesus of Suburbia. On the other hand, the story also takes place on a contemporary level, focusing especially on a country in transition and the subsequent consequences for its inhabitants, which – again – generate the problem and theme of identity. By means of its characters American Idiot reflects incredibly well how Americans must have felt under Bush, being torn between the love for their country and the feeling that, for them, the center of the earth – where they felt at home and at ease – was becoming the end of the world – a psychological theater of war. “‘American Idiot’ is the song that sets the political climate that our main characters live in. If it’s kind of dark, it’s just a direct reflection of the story being written in modern times” (Mike Dirnt, in Spitz 2006: 164). The way the characters are portrayed in the lyrics makes it very easy to identify with them and with the problems and conflicts they have to face, either outside or within their own personality. Practically everyone of us could be Jesus of Suburbia, Whatsername or even St. Jimmy (at least to some extent), which makes these characters all the more relevant for the audience, and the story even more accessible. What is especially remarkable about American Idiot is that, despite all political and religious criticism, it does not suggest any right or wrong concerning the story and actions of each character, which involves the message that everyone has the chance to find out for themselves which road to take and what to believe in. “Indeed, American Idiot does not have to be read in the context of the Bush administration or even of America itself to make sense. It is at once a very current and a very universal piece” (Small 2005: 93). Referring to the character of Jesus of Suburbia, Armstrong describes the underlying perspective of the album as a point “‘[…] where you’re looking on your past and you’re coming of age at the same time.’ Much as the band itself had done” (ibid.).

69 6. Experiencing the 21 st century breakdown

“There’s nothing to prove anymore; we’re just trying to show that we have this spirit that rock ‘n’ roll can change lives, and it really is a religious experience that means something to us. It’s more about faith now.” (Billie Joe Armstrong, in Burgess 2009: 86)

6.1 “And where will we all go when it’s too late?”

During the second Bush era, many people were already starting to think about life thereafter and about their country’s future. They definitely did this in a more anxious than optimistic kind of way – and so did Green Day. In “Letterbomb” on American Idiot they, first of all, let Whatsername (as the speaker) ask “Where have all the riots gone?”, probably wondering why hardly anyone seemed to want to stop the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. She therefore calls for a riot: “So strike the fucking match to light this fuse!” To reinforce this statement, Whatsername warns in the chorus that “It’s not over till you’re underground / It’s not over before it’s too late / […] / There is nothing left to analyze”. The message of these lines is similar to the one that can be found in “Holiday”: If the war goes on like this, there might be no one left to be saved, or to save and rebuild the countries involved. Whatsername also finds explicit words for her concerns in the bridge of “Letterbomb” and asks the following thought- provoking question: “Where will all the martyrs go when the virus cures itself?” She criticizes martyrs, people who are willing to die for their faith and religion, and wraps this criticism in the oxymoronic question of where these martyrs will go “when the virus cures itself” (my emphasis). A virus can never be a cure for a disease. Probably, Whatsername is trenchantly referring to the war – and the people who are convinced of its necessity – as the virus, which cannot be cured unless it cures, or better destroys, everything including itself. She then adds the significant question, “And where will we all go when it’s too late?” (my emphasis). What chances will people still have when it is basically too late to repent? Where will the country go after George W. Bush?

This brings us again to the question that has been asked (or better cited) in the first chapter of this thesis: “[…] what is left for [Green Day] to rail against in the post-Bush world?” (Qthemusic.com 2009). In their latest album, 21 st Century Breakdown , the band tries to deal

70 with and make sense of the aftermath of two periods of Bush governance. Among other things, Green Day want to point out that even if America has awoken from a nightmare (referring to eight years of Bush administration), the country is – in fact – still right in the middle of it and living it. The crucial point of 21 st Century Breakdown is that there is new hope (given the fact that there is also a new president), but that – first of all – the damage and harm that have been caused have to be dealt with and fixed in one way or the other. However, reducing or even overcoming the chaos is not only the new president’s responsibility but the one of a whole country and each person living in it – a message that is unmistakably delivered by the song “Know your Enemy”. All this definitely sounds like a high-wire act, but suffice it to say that this concept album is called 21 st Century Breakdown for a reason and that it undoubtedly includes the band’s boldest statements ever. Moreover, taking into account the financial and economic crisis, the subsequent unemployment and the resulting rough times for so many people, “Green Day sound like they’re as shocked as anyone else” (Sheffield 2009). It is therefore not surprising that the critique of modern society and politics is a recurrent theme on this album (cf. page 9). In this regard, “21 st Century Breakdown” constitutes a special case. Like “Jesus of Suburbia” it is a song that is equally personal as it is social and political. In the first verse, for example, Armstrong refers to his (early) personal life and to his hometown Rodeo (cf. page 14) without sparing social and political criticism: “Born into Nixon I was raised in hell / A welfare child where the teamsters dwelled / The last one born and the first one to run / My town was blind from refinery sun”. Later on, he focuses a bit more on political content: “Videogames to the tower’s fall / Homeland Security could kill us all”. With these lines he calls on people to be watchful and skeptic about seemingly trustworthy institutions like Homeland Security, which is meant to protect the United States against terror acts. Armstrong very well knows – and with him basically the whole world does – how much damage has already been done to his country because of this per se patriotic proposition. The last two lines of the song seem to be directed at American society as a whole: “Scream, America scream / Believe what you see / From heroes and cons?” Because of these lyrics, it is definitely not a coincidence that “21 st Century Breakdown” is directly followed by “Know your Enemy”, which is not so much a critique of modern society but rather an exhortation that everyone should be aware of their (above-mentioned) responsibility to engage themselves in society – because “Silence is the enemy” (cf. page 6). Both songs sound highly urgent and epic; as practically the whole album does.

71 Many of the songs on 21 st Century Breakdown demanded considerable courage from Billie Joe Armstrong as the main songwriter. For instance, he had to be pushed by producer

to finish the album’s most fragile ballad, “Restless Heart Syndrome”, which […] builds to a tumultuous peak like the end of ’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” […]. “I didn’t have the audacity to write it,” Mr. Armstrong said. “It was just all bottled in insecurity. Sometimes I think a melody asks something from you that you don’t want to necessarily face.” (Pareles 2009)

The insecurity Armstrong mentions is omnipresent in the music and the lyrics of this extremely touching ballad. “Restless Heart Syndrome” is about “prescription drug dependence” (ibid.), and is probably meant to mirror the feelings of the American people, many of who were not sure of their identity anymore and therefore desperately wanted to benumb their pain and worries: “Somebody take the pain away / It’s like an ulcer bleeding in my brain / So send me to the pharmacy / So I can lose my memory / I’m elated / Medicated / God knows I’ve tried to find a way / To run away”. Although the speaker talks about being elated because of the medicine he is taking, he realizes that he has, in fact, become a victim of his disease, or better of his inner conflict, and consequently of pharmaceuticals:

I’m a victim of my symptom / I am my own worst enemy / You’re a victim of your symptom / You are your own worst enemy / Know your enemy / [instrumental section] / I’m elated / Medicated / I am my own worst enemy / So what ails you / Is what impales you / You are your own worst enemy / You’re a victim of the system / You are your own worst enemy.

In these lyrics we come across the line “Know your enemy” again. Thus, the message of the eponymous song is reemphasized and also enhanced in “Restless Heart Syndrome”. The song specifies the statement, especially with the lines “You’re a victim of your symptom” and “You’re a victim of the system”, and by not only saying that we have to know our enemy, but that we might actually be our own worst enemies. This again stresses the aforementioned individual responsibility of every person to make their country a better place. In other words, as long as people take action and do not remain silent, they are neither the victims of authority nor the victims of their own inactiveness and apathy. To sum up, “Restless Heart Syndrome” does not just criticize the passive attitude of many people or simply lament bad times. It is an insightful acknowledgement of the fact that it is not always easy to try to make sense of the world and still feel comfortable in one’s skin

72 at the same time. Actually, this aspect is a recurring part of the majority of songs on the album and therefore makes the question of identity an essential theme on 21 st Century Breakdown . Green Day seem to have found the cure for their personal restless heart syndrome in the decision to make this album the record of their lives.

6.2 A matter of faith

Probably many critics as well as Green Day’s fans wondered how the band would follow their immensely successful eighth album American Idiot . 21 st Century Breakdown was the best answer the Bay area trio could have given. “Even more ambitious than American Idiot , 21 st Century Breakdown is a record of die-hard punk ideals and tightly scripted, continually ascending classic-rock excitement” (Fricke 2009: 18). It took Green Day five years to create and release 21 st Century Breakdown . Without any doubt, making this album was an incisive experience for the band. “It’s like, once you think you’re going deep, you haven’t gone deep enough. You have to search the absolute demons of your soul to make a great record,” (Burgess 2009: 84) Armstrong says. This statement is one of the many proofs that, when singing “So rally up the demons of your soul” in “Know your Enemy”, Green Day do not demand anything from other people that they would not be prepared to do themselves. “American Idiot freed us up to work on the most powerful stuff we’ve ever written,” (ibid.: 86) Armstrong adds. The band had to choose from an estimated seventy to a hundred songs they had written (cf. Pareles 2009), and had to decide which ones were actually good enough to be released on their new record. “It was completely arrogant to say that we were going to outdo ‘American Idiot’ but completely humbling when you actually try to do it,” (ibid.) the band’s front man admits. Doubtlessly, “Restless Heart Syndrome” was, by any standard, not the only intense writing experience for him and his band members. When Armstrong says in the introductory quote to this chapter that “It’s more about faith now” (Burgess 2009: 86), he does not only refer to the mentioned religious experience concerning the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll being able to change lives, but likewise to Green Day increasingly having faith in themselves as a band, especially with the impetus of the massive success of American Idiot . What most remarkably expresses Green Day’s ambition and progressiveness on 21 st Century Breakdown is the criticism of religion, i.e. of faith fanatics in particular. Even if there were times when it would have been absurd to expect serious statements about religion and

73 faith from the band (be they positive or negative), now they offer a highly sophisticated and authentic view on the matter. This already becomes apparent in the names Armstrong chose for the characters of 21 st Century Breakdown , which do not seem as elaborate as the ones in American Idiot , but still provide a highly interesting background for the album’s message. When being asked about why he chose the names Gloria and Christian, Billie Joe Armstrong replied the following:

It’s like a woman’s name for “glory” […]. As far as that character, the emotion of the record is this person that’s trying to hold onto the torch -- whether it’s your own political values, your own moral value, or just holding on to yourself [much like Whatsername and other rebel girls do]. Christian was an interesting name because it’s also a religious root. So, a song like ‘Christian’s Inferno,’ it’s this guy -- he’s not carrying a torch -- but he’s trying to burn the whole f---ing place down and he becomes a victim of his own demons in a lot of ways [cf. page 72]. (Baltin 2009)

When being confronted with the term ‘faith fanatics’ many people might automatically think of terrorists and suicide bombers, or even worse, reduce the term to Muslims. The main statement of Green Day’s critique, however, is that religion is all too often used as an excuse to justify intolerance, violence and even war between people or peoples of different beliefs. As has already been discussed, the Bush administration and its strong commitment to the Afghanistan and Iraq war had an immensely incriminatory impact on the United States. George W. Bush decided to fight fire with fire, that is, to launch a Jihad, a holy war, himself. The worst thing for Green Day and the punk scene were (or still are) Bush’s extremist views as a right-wing conservative. The following lines from the song “The Static Age” breathtakingly illustrate a vital part of the message the band wants to deliver with their latest album, namely that something (like a Jihad) is not right just because your countrymen do it or because the president of your country thinks it is the right thing to do – believing that God is on their side. The – mostly corruptive – influence of the media concerning the war is also a crucial part of this song:

Advertising love and religion / Murder on the airwaves / Slogans on the brink of corruption / Vision of blasphemy, war and peace / Screaming at you / I can’t see a thing in the video / I can’t hear a sound on the radio / In stereo in the static age / […] / Conscience on a cross and / Your heart’s in a vice / Squeezing out your state of mind / […] / What’s the latest way that a man can die / Screaming hallelujah? / Singing out “the dawn’s early light” / The silence of the rotten, forgotten / Screaming at you.

74 The song bitterly (and quite sarcastically) asks, “What’s the latest way that a man can die / Screaming hallelujah? / Singing out ‘the dawn’s early light’”. These lines are – again – hard on those who take faith and patriotism as the ultimate justification for their actions, and even as a reason to give their lives. The phrase “the dawn’s early light” obviously refers to the national anthem of the United States of America, hailing and praising the Star-Spangled Banner, i.e. the flag that is, as suggested by the lyrics of this anthem, a consolation and also confirmation of American identity – especially in times of war. What is more, Armstrong uses the impressively powerful oxymoron of ‘screaming silence’. The silence of all those who fell in the war – the seemingly forgotten – is equated with a scream and could be interpreted as a maddening tinnitus in the ears and minds of anti-war protesters. Maybe as a mirror of the prevailing confusion in their country, some songs on 21 st Century Breakdown are not easy to analyze in that it is often not easy to assign only one predominant theme to one specific song. Most songs on this album combine several aspects, like in the case of “The Static Age” the media, religion, consumerism and the gradual loss of individuality (“Squeezing out your state of mind”), the latter being the corrosive effect of the first three examples. “21 Guns” is a beautifully manifaceted song as well. Its title is a reference to “the 21- gun-salute for someone that’s fallen” (Lynskey 2009: 52). On the one hand, it addresses the uncertainty and pain of a single person concerning the war and its aftermath. On the other hand, there is explicit criticism of the war and of the role faith plays in this respect: “Your faith walks on broken glass / And the hangover doesn’t pass / Nothing’s ever built to last / You’re in ruins”. The way the lyrics of this song are written, it seems as if it is about a person who supported the war at first, but then – as if suddenly in shock – becomes aware of the destruction and mayhem that have been caused with it. The speaker could either be this person talking to itself, or someone else addressing him or her. For instance, at the beginning of the song, the equally pensive and alienated question is asked, “Do you know what’s worth fighting for / When it’s not worth dying for?”. What is still worth fighting for when you are no longer willing to die for it? Where do you draw the line between true commitment and bigotry? The chorus of this song is an emphatic appeal to end the war and to stop fighting and even includes the idea of surrender: “One, 21 guns / Lay down your arms / Give up the fight / One, 21 guns / Throw up your arms into the sky / You and I”.

In all the songs on 21 st Century Breakdown Green Day completely avoid what Bush and institutionalized religion have repeatedly been criticized for by politically and religiously

75 liberal people, and that is to say that someone who does not share certain ideas and beliefs with you will therefore go to hell. Instead, the band encourages their audience to scrutinize common (religious or other) beliefs without actually telling people what to think, to do or to believe, and without automatically condemning those who do not believe the same – however radical and extreme certain songs might appear. “Put your faith in a miracle / and it’s non- denominational / join the choir we will be singing / in the church of wishful thinking / A fire burns today / of blasphemy and genocide / the sirens of decay / will infiltrate the faith fanatics”, sings Billie Joe Armstrong in “East Jesus Nowhere”. He boldly and highly skillfully refers to the fact that a war was started because of religious fanaticism by singing about a fire that burns “of blasphemy and genocide” (my emphasis). The last two lines of the quotation are probably meant to allude to a point in the future “when the virus cures itself” (cf. page 70). Armstrong explains that the song was inspired by

the never-ending hypocrisy of religion, […], and that subliminal thing of threatening people and ripping away their individuality. I went to a Baptist church when I was, like, 14, and they basically said, ‘If you do not accept Jesus Christ into your life, you’re going to burn for eternity.’ I was this 14-year-old kid, and I was scared shitless. But then you start to realise, they’re all hypocrites. These kids there would be saying things like, ‘If you’re not paying attention right now, that’s Satan taking your mind away.’ It was evil. (Cairns 2009)32

When being interviewed for an Alternative Press article (Burgess 2009: 86) Armstrong adds that in his opinion “religion is responsible for probably 90 percent of the problems the world is faced with right now, so it’s a good time for a religious rant”. The topic of religion and the corresponding criticism has become increasingly important in Green Day’s lyrics. It is important to mention that this is not a matter of criticizing religion per se, but that it is about becoming aware of recent changes and developments in this respect. In an article from USA Today about 21 st Century Breakdown the band’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong is quoted regarding the boldness and aggressive nature of the song “East Jesus Nowhere”: “I have nothing against religion. It’s about preying on people’s blind faith. I’m all for spirituality. There’s nothing more spiritual than rock ‘n’ roll ” (Gundersen 2009; my emphasis).

32 In “21 st Century Breakdown” Armstrong’s childhood experience is expressed in the line “Condemnation is what I understood”.

76 7. Conclusion

“This is the biggest band you’ll find / It’s as deep as it is wide / Come on and join together with the band.” (taken from “Join Together” by The Who)

The main purpose of this paper was to illustrate the development of Green Day’s lyrics in the course of time, that is, from their early years until the present. An essential part of this project was to show that this progression is very closely linked to the way the three members of Green Day have evolved as individuals and – most importantly – as a band. By focusing on the key concept of ‘development’ in my analysis, another basic aim was to reveal that this concept is actually the band’s ultimate formula of success. Green Day could not have remained the kings of punk rock over several decades if it were not for the development they have undertaken as musicians, and for the consequent, palpable progress and ambition in their lyrics. In the course of my analysis I was able to confirm the central supposition that, first of all, there is considerable progress in Green Day’s lyrics. Second, the more concrete development from general themes (teenage frustration and disillusionment, the anxiety about growing up, unfulfilled love and social alienation) to politically and religiously charged ones could be demonstrated according to my expectations. Of course, the latter did not substitute earlier topics, but extended and enhanced the band’s repertoire. At the same time, the analysis of the lyrics delivered some surprising results. For instance, the frequency of lyrics about love (of a positive or a negative kind) was far higher than expected, especially in the band’s early years, i.e. before the release of their first major label album. What was also unexpected in the abundance my research revealed was the direct relevance of the band members’ lives for the lyrics of their songs. In this respect, ‘direct’ means that, in a considerable number of cases, the content of the lyrics can directly (and not only peripherally) be linked to a particular real-life experience of either Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt or Tré Cool. Examples are “80”, “Jesus of Suburbia”, “Wake me up when September Ends”, “21 st Century Breakdown”, but – in fact – many more.

An insight that has only marginally to do with the topic of this paper – but which is still highly meaningful to me as a fan in the process of writing about Green Day – concerns the musical version of American Idiot . At first, I was quite skeptical of it because I could not

77 imagine Green Day’s songs being performed by other people, and – in addition – on Broadway. The thought of Green Day going to Broadway was so unthinkable and epic at the same time, or in Billie Joe Armstrong’s words “ so Off-Broadway” (Spitz 2006: 181). I was actually lucky enough to see the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical in the summer of 2010 at the St. James Theatre in . I was thrilled and more than positively surprised. The cast was exceptional and the performance beyond breathtaking. This memorable experience definitely added a lot to my understanding of the story behind American Idiot and of the spirit of Green Day’s music and lyrics in general. At first sight, to even mention Green Day and Broadway in the same sentence seems to make the ultimate oxymoron. As has been pointed out in the first chapter of this thesis, this band definitely is an oxymoron within itself – a walking contradiction. Over the years, Green Day have effectively demonstrated that this is just who they are by nature: versatile, innovative and ambitious on the one hand, pure punk rock on the other. Besides all the changes and development the band has gone through, there is one thing that has continuously remained unaltered:

“Well, you know, for me punk has always been about doing things your own way,” Armstrong said in 2005. “What it represents for me is an ultimate freedom and sense of individuality. Which basically become a metaphor for life and the way you want to live it. […] It’s about remaining passionate in punk rock but at the same time just really doing your own thing so its not just about writing punk , but writing Green Day music.” (Spitz 2006: 181-182; my emphasis)

It goes without doubt that Green Day will continue to make their music and write their lyrics in the future. Still, one cannot help but muse about the question what kind of album will be able to measure up to the band’s latest masterpiece 21 st Century Breakdown and its overwhelmingly powerful predecessor American Idiot . In 2006, perspicaciously wrote that “somewhere in the world, a band will be playing with the formula, taking what was invented with American Idiot , expanding it, and remaking punk rock’s future yet again. It would be foolish, at this point, to rule out that the band may be Green Day themselves” (ibid.: xvi). With 21 st Century Breakdown the band has already proved Spitz right once. Some time from now, who knows, maybe they will just do it again. Green Day… from suburban punks to one of the biggest bands in rock – ever.

78 8. Bibliography

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79 Online Sources:

BALTIN , Steve (2009, April 17). “Billie Joe Armstrong Goes Nuts for Robert Pattinson, Obama and ‘Rock of Love’”. Spinner . [Online]. http://www.spinner.com/2009/04/17/billie-joe-armstrong-goes-nuts-for-robert- pattinson-obama-and [2009, April 20]

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80 Anonymous (2008, December 2). “Green Day speak about new power-pop album”. NME.com / First for music news . [Online]. http://www.nme.com/news/green-day/41408 [2008, December 8]

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Online Encyclopedia:

“heartland” (2010). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. [Online]. Merriam-Webster. An Encyclopaedia Britannica Company. http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/heartland?show=0&t=1288131211 [2010, October 23]

81 “free-for-all” (2011). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. [Online]. Merriam-Webster. An Encyclopaedia Britannica Company. http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/free-for-all [2011, January 8]

“ordeal” (2011). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. [Online]. Merriam-Webster. An Encyclopaedia Britannica Company. http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/ordeal [2011, February 10]

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E-mail Message:

American Idiot on Broadway ([email protected]). (2011, February 14). “Save Up to $100 Per Ticket on American Idiot”. Email to Marion Oberegger ([email protected]).

Sound Recording:

Green Day (2005). Bullet in a Bible . Reprise.

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