I swear on a stack of bibles . . . oh, wait, I’m an atheist . . . I swear on a stack of all my favorite albums that this review has nothing to do with recent developments that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Idiots are now the single largest demographic in the United States.

No, the choice was largely motivated by my pen name. I’m supposed to be the altROCKchick but I haven’t done a single, no-holds-barred, let’s-kick-some-ass-and-jump-into-the-mosh-pit rock review since my return! I’m standing on the knife edge of false advertising and we can’t have that, can we?

I had several rock, hard rock, punk and even metal albums to choose from (including Green Day’s Dookie), but what drew me to American Idiot was a comment Billie Joe Armstrong made during an interview with Guitar World: “We were like, ‘Let’s just go balls-out on the guitar sound—plug in the Les Pauls and Marshalls and let it rip!'”

Yeah, baby! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

*****

This is my first review of Green Day, largely due to poor timing. By the time I began frequenting punk venues in the Bay Area in the late 90s, Green Day was long gone, having made their last appearance at 924 Gilman in Berkeley in 1993 (when they signed with a major label they became persona non grata at 924). I heard some of their songs now and then, but I was more interested in the bands I saw live like Rancid and $winging Utter$. I don’t remember hearing any Green Day songs during my college years, but that was the period when I was addicted to love and determined to become the greatest slut of all time. Music only served as a background soundtrack to my erotic adventures.

I think I can speak for my co-generationists when I tell you there was no way in hell a Millenial could have avoided Green Day in the autumn of 2024 when American Idiot hit the shelves. I heard it everywhere—at least everywhere Millenials hung out. They played it in record stores, at parties and on the radio; you could hear it blasting out of shit cars and leaking out of crappy headphones in coffee shops.

American Idiot was released when the presidential campaign was in full swing and many interpreted the title as a direct attack on George W. Bush. In the documentary Heart Like a Hand Grenade, filmed during the recording of American Idiot, all three band members vehemently rejected that assertion. Bush was certainly one of the idiots alluded to in the script but when it came to idiocy, he had plenty of company in the American populace. John Colapinto of Rolling Stone bought into the Bush angle (“American Idiot was huge in ambition and scope, and sounded like a direct call to arms to oust the country’s most powerful idiot from the Oval Office”), but managed to get closer to the truth two sentences later:

Called the world’s first punk-rock opera, American Idiot is something more: It is a fearless and politically astute rock album, a richly melodic song suite that gives voice to the disenfranchised suburban underclass of Americans who feel wholly unrepresented by the current leadership of oilmen and Ivy Leaguers, and who are too smart to accept the “reality” presented by news media who sell the government’s line of fear and warmongering—“a nation under the new mania,” as Armstrong snarls on the ferocious title track.

Better, but still slanted by Colapinto’s anti-Bush orientation and inadequate in terms of his failure to recognize the generational perspective. Fortunately, Wikipedia provided a bias-free take: “American Idiot follows the story of Jesus of Suburbia, a lower-middle-class American adolescent anti-hero. The album expresses the disillusionment and dissent of a generation that came of age in a period shaped by tumultuous events such as 9/11 and the Iraq War.”

The disillusionment must be placed in context. For many millennials, the latter half of the 90s was seriously cool for the most part. We could surf the new-fangled internet on our colorful iMacs, explore the flood of high-quality video games hitting the market, watch our favorites on MTV and VH1, talk with our friends without worrying about nosy parents thanks to the cellphone, and enjoy the upbeat environment occasioned by all-time low unemployment rates and a booming stock market. Who cares if the President can’t shoot straight and soiled a lady’s dress? Fuck politics—let’s party!

Things started to get weird toward the end of the decade. Columbine. The Y2K freakout. The dot-com boom seemed to be running out of steam. The Supreme Court stole an election for the neo-cons. The mood shifted from euphoria to what-the-fuck-is-going-on.

Then Bush took office and suddenly we’re in a recession. Stocks plummeted and the dot-com boom became a bust. The horror of 9/11 triggered the full flowering of American paranoia courtesy of cable news. The neo-cons launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, foreign entanglements that would drag on for years. Air travel became a pain in the ass. The Freedom Caucus reared its hateful head. The country was split into red states and blue states. Mass shootings became everyday occurrences. It felt as if we flipped from bright sunlight to the darkest pits of hell overnight, so it’s no wonder we were disillusioned, confused—and seriously pissed off.

American Idiot is essentially a coming-of-age story that takes place during a period when it was extraordinarily difficult for young people to come of age. While you might find the tale of Jesus of Suburbia and his alter ego St. Jimmy somewhat confusing from a strictly narrative standpoint, the real story involves the emotional journey of the anti-hero as he attempts to forge an identity in a world that seems indifferent to his wants and needs.

*****

Music by Green Day, lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong except where noted.

“American Idiot”: The title track serves as an overture, establishing the musical and lyrical themes for the journey ahead.

The song opens with a brief feint of lo-fi guitar followed immediately by the WHAM! of distorted power chords from Armstrong, thunderous bass from Mike Dirnt and high-energy drums from Tré Cool, all set to a speed of 186 bpm. Suddenly the guitar and bass disappear, leaving Tré pounding away as Billie Joe steps to the microphone to deliver a line that captured the feelings and dreams of a generation in seven words: “DON’T WANT TO BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT!”

A-fucking-men!

Don’t wanna be an American idiot
Don’t want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mindfuck America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alien nation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay

In television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue

The “subliminal mind fuck” refers to both the patriotic guilt trip peddled by the Bush administration and the fear-stoking faux-journalism of the cable channels. My Vietnam-era parents warned me about the dangers inherent in self-professed patriotism (“the last refuge of a scoundrel” in Dr. Johnson’s words) and how it can be used to stifle dissent. It was bad enough to have to suffer through drama queen versions of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of a ball game, but ruining the 7th-inning stretch with Irving Berlin’s nothingburger “God Bless America” forced me to head for the ladies’ room in triple time. Even those who thought the ritual of removing one’s hat and standing for the national anthem was downright silly felt obliged to do so to escape the wrath of “patriotic” fans.

So much for “freedom.”

You didn’t have to watch Fox News to get your daily dose of paranoia and prejudice. The college television room was set to CNN, and my sensitive ears, influenced by watching historical coverage of the JFK assassination, noticed a pattern that was once a big no-no in the days of Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley: speculation. “There could be another attack.” “This could mean that any tall building or national monument is at risk.” The coverage was more like a never-ending horror movie than journalism, but we all know how Americans appreciate a good horror flick. Fear sells, and most importantly, fear inspires voters to go to the polls.

The shift in media coverage brings up another glitch in the modern American psyche: the failure to understand irony and satire. Paddy Chayefsky’s film Network was intended to serve as a wake-up call about the danger of transforming journalism into entertainment, but instead of demanding journalistic professionalism, Americans flocked to “news channels” loaded with political bias, entertainment segments, pop-psychologists and quack doctors. When the unscrupulous Gordon Gekko argued that “greed is good” in the film Wall Street, Oliver Stone thought that audiences would get the hint that greed is a bad thing. Not a fucking chance. “Greed is good” became the motto of overpaid CEO’s everywhere.

And now you have a TV star in the Oval Office constantly encouraging white people to stay “mad as hell” and remain unwilling to take it anymore. Good luck with that.

In the second verse, Billie Joe draws a clear line between his values and those cherished by the idiots, subtly contrasting the fear craze with the innocent years when Americans danced to The Twist without a care in the world:

Well, 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

What I love most about “American Idiot” is the band’s obvious commitment, expressed in the take-no-prisoners punk music and the proud defiance of the new normal. The message I hear is “We mean fucking business and we’re not going to hold anything back.” Unlike too many punk bands who disdain melody, Green Day takes a more inclusive approach to music, as demonstrated by the exceptionally memorable melody in the chorus. “American Idiot” is a kick ass song directed at people who need a good kick in the ass, and the melodic chorus strengthens the song’s appeal.

“Jesus of Suburbia”: This is the first of two five-part suites that open and close the story of Jesus of Suburbia, aka St. Jimmy. The lyrics consist largely of dramatic monologues delivered by our anti-hero.

The accompanying video tells us that Jesus of Suburbia lives on the wrong side of the tracks, where the kids have little else to do but hang out at 7-11, smoke, drink, do drugs, and remain constantly on edge. Romantic relationships are ephemeral at best; when you find out that the girl you’re fucking is fucking someone else you rise in protest, conveniently ignoring the fact that you’re fucking someone else too. Our anti-hero’s mother bears little resemblance to the Virgin Mary, having dumped one loser husband for another and telling her offspring that he’s a loser just like his father. I found no consensus among internet users regarding his choice of an alias, but given his label as an anti-hero, we can extend the negative to the name and conclude that Jesus of Suburbia is the anti-savior who realizes that he has no chance of saving himself or anyone else from the misery of lower-class life in America.

I. “Jesus of Suburbia”: The anti-hero introduces himself as “the son of rage and love,” adhering to “the bible of none of the above” and following a strict regimen of “soda pop and Ritalin,” the latter serving as a panacea for kids who have problems focusing on the boring shit taught in school. The dramatic music combines high-speed passages with punctuating pauses introduced by three quick power chords where Jesus spews his modest biography. The chorus may be seen as poignant by those blessed with emotional intelligence and terrifying to the patriots who believe America can do no wrong:

And there’s nothin’ wrong with me
This is how I’m supposed to be
In a land of make-believe
That don’t believe in me

II. “City of the Damned”: After a fabulous display of crashing power chords and Tré’s facility with the drumsticks, a smooth transition to a slightly slower tempo heralds the second part of the suite. Here Jesus concludes that life in his hometown is horseshit, “the end of the world” where indifference reigns supreme.

At the center of the Earth in the parking lot
Of the 7-Eleven where I was taught
The motto was just a lie
It says “home is where your heart is,” but what a shame
‘Cause everyone’s heart doesn’t beat the same
It’s beating out of time

City of the dead (Hey, hey)
At the end of another lost highway (Hey, hey)
Signs misleading to nowhere
City of the damned (Hey, hey)
Lost children with dirty faces today (Hey, hey)
No one really seems to care

I read the graffiti in the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures of the shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess
It didn’t say much, but it only confirmed
That the center of the Earth is the end of the world

The graffiti you find in lavatories everywhere are often protests bereft of hope. The phrase “holy scriptures of the shopping mall” tells us that consumer-oriented capitalism doesn’t do much for those who have no money and whose yearnings for a better world will never be satisfied by material things.

III. “I Don’t Care“: “City of the Damned” fades at full power, making for another seamless transition to the unbridled non-stop romp “I Don’t Care.” The first segment is a nihilist anthem, repeating “I don’t care if you don’t/I don’t care if you don’t/I don’t care if you don’t care” four times. When the music shifts from full band to the sequence power-chord/cut to drums/cue the vocal, Jesus gives us a little more to go on:

Everyone’s so full of shit
Born and raised by hypocrites
Hearts recycled but never saved
From the cradle to the grave
We are the kids of war and peace
From Anaheim to the Middle East
We are the stories and disciples of
The Jesus of Suburbia

Land of make-believe
And it don’t believe in me
Land of make-believe (Said now it’s, it’s another lie)
And I don’t believe

And I don’t care . . .

The irony of it all is that he does care—if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be preaching so strenuously about America’s failings. Unlike members of certain religious cults who simply ignore what’s happening in the world and tend to their own business, Jesus of Suburbia is angry about mass hypocrisy and the empty promises of the American Dream—and that he is powerless to do anything about it.

IV. “Dearly Beloved”: This brief interval set to a medium tempo finds Jesus of Suburbia in a more reflective mood, uncertain about what to do next.

Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that’s in between insane and insecure

Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?

After this brief struggle with doubt (mirroring the fear and reluctance of Jesus Christ at Gethsamane), the anti-hero concludes that it’s time to get the fuck out of this dump.

V. “Tales of Another Broken Home”: As is true of most extended musical forms, we expect the closing movement, recapitulation or finale to be assertive and memorable—we want the piece to end with a bang, not a whimper (though a quiet ending might seem like a bang in certain contexts). Green Day fills the need with a passionate display of punk power and pent-up frustration as the anti-hero closes one chapter in his life and moves on to another. The urgency of the moment is captured in the unrelenting thunder in the band’s attack, supporting the stated frustrations with music that carries the message, “I have had it with this fucking shit!”

To live and not to breathe
Is to die in tragedy
To run, to run away
To find what you believe . . .

And I leave behind
This hurricane of fuckin’ lies
And I’ve walked this line
A million and one fuckin’ times
But not this time . . .

The lines are followed by an extended guitar solo centered around the song’s memorable motif. As the guitar shifts to a sinuous, all-over-the-fretboard riff, we get the feeling that Jesus of Suburbia is on the edge of achieving real freedom for the first time in his life—then suddenly the power goes dark, replaced by soft piano and calm reflection:

I don’t feel any shame, I won’t apologize
When there ain’t nowhere you can go
Runnin’ away from pain when you’ve been victimized
Tales from another broken . . . HOME

On “Home” the band returns to full power, enhanced by the repeated response, “You’re leaving!” and Jesus of Suburbia heads for parts unknown . . . an updated version of Huck Finn or Sal Paradise hitting the river or the road in search of freedom. “Jesus of Suburbia” is a pretty ambitious piece of music, and Green Day pulls it off with aplomb.

“Holiday”: Finding himself alone in an unnamed big city (probably New York, where Billie Joe hung out for a while during the period of composition), Jesus of Suburbia makes use of his newfound freedom by “speaking out loud . . . like screaming into mid-air” (Songfacts). What matters is what he’s screaming about, for it seems that he’s temporarily moved beyond his personal struggles, expanding his perspective to include the greater systemic problem: the Bush administration and its policies regarding war and patriotism.

Or, it was just a very convenient opportunity for Billie Joe Armstrong to send a wake-up call to Americans regarding the war and the manipulative politics of the Bush-Cheney regime. John Colapinto (correctly this time) asserted that the line “this is our lives on holiday” reflected the political apathy of Americans during a time when their country was under serious threat from within in the form of the Republican Party.

Sound familiar?

The song works within the context of the story because Jesus of Suburbia had already figured out that the American Dream was one big bad lie and the whole “War on Terror” thing was just one more turd on the bullshit pile. Given his current circumstances, he has nothing to lose as he walks the streets spreading his anti-war gospel:

Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like an Armageddon flame (hey!)
The shame, the ones who died without a name . . .

Oh, I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday!

Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protester has crossed the line (hey!)
To find the money’s on the other side
Can I get another amen? (Amen!)
There’s a flag wrapped around a score of men (hey!)
A gag, a plastic bag on a monument

He gets down to serious business when playing the role of “representative from California”:

“Sieg Heil” to the president Gasman
Bombs away is your punishment
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your government

“Bang! Bang!” goes the broken glass, and
Kill all the fags that don’t agree
Try to fight fire, setting fire
Is not a way that’s meant for me

Lots to unpack in those two verses. “Pulverize the Eiffel towers who criticize your government” . . . Geez, I forgot all about Freedom Fries! The meal of choice for American Idiots! If Tony Blair had listened to the French instead of praying with Bush, we might remember him more fondly. And as we’ve seen again and again from the GOP, demonizing non-white-non-straight human beings is a key component of their arsenal—and there are a healthy number of Americans today who would like nothing more than an opportunity to send LGBTQ people to meet their maker.

Musically speaking, the song is marked by another memorable melody, generous helpings of power and an exceptional vocal from Billie Joe, marked by genuine concern for his country and its future. As he told Rolling Stone, the song is “not anti-American but anti-war.” When I’m pissed off about the state of the world and seek some relief, “Holiday” is one of my go-to numbers.

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”: If there’s one quality that truly describes Jesus of Suburbia, it is the utter loneliness that dominates his existence. Even when he was hanging out with the kids at the 7-11 he was alone. Loneliness does not require solitude; the most common form of loneliness involves the failure to be understood and respected by other human beings. Billie Joe fully understood the dynamics of loneliness, as he explained to an interviewer in 2024:

“Anytime that I would be writing songs for a record, you feel like a sense of isolation. At that time, I went to New York by myself. I was staying in an apartment, and I was there for quite some time – over a couple months – and I was just trying to focus on writing [American Idiot] with no distractions. There can be all of this chaos going on around you, but ultimately you can find yourself pretty alone in the world.”

Set to a simple chord pattern of Fm/G#/D#/Bb (easier to play with a capo on the first fret for the Em/G/D/A fingerings) with a C#/G#/D#/Fm with a closing C7 in the bridge, the song is custom-made for the acoustic guitar used in the opening passage. Unlike “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” this piece requires a shift to distorted power chords to express the depth of the emotional struggle with loneliness. The varying dynamics heighten the drama as Jesus of Suburbia hunts for some form of companionship:

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s home to me, and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one, and I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk a-

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes, I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then, I walk alone

It’s a song that is so beautiful that it hurts; so painful that it can bring tears to your eyes when you revisit your own bouts with loneliness. In addition to winning the Grammy for Record of the Year (yawn) and MTV Video of the Year (double yawn), “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” sold extraordinarily well just about everywhere in the world:

• Top 10: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Scotland, Sweden, U.K., U.S. (7 charts)
• Top 20: Europe (Eurochart), Finland, France, Germany, Swizterland
• Platinum: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, U.K., U.S.A.

All the lonely people . . . oh, my.

“Are We the Waiting”: From Songfacts: “Billie Joe Armstrong explained the song’s origin on VH1 Storytellers: “‘Are We the Waiting’ sort of started when I was walking around on a misty night in New York City, and I think it’s at a point in the record where the character is on the verge of losing his mind a little bit and he’s very vulnerable, and it’s right before the ‘St. Jimmy’ comes up.”

What I hear in this piece is a marvelous example of creating music to fit the lyrical mood. The song opens with Tré Cool laying out what will become a repeated rhythm consisting of two parts, the second adding a double hit on the toms followed by a cymbal crash. A couple of bars later, Billie Joe enters with an electric guitar arpeggio that will eventually give way to held notes of grinding distortion. That simple arrangement is quite mesmerizing and cinematic—we can visualize the anti-hero stutter-stepping in the mist, his insides grinding away. The arrangement also holds a significant amount of tension that will continue to build until the thrilling release of the chorus, where the boys sing the lyrics in unison.

(verse 1)
Starry nights city lights
Coming down over me
Skyscrapers, stargazers in my head
Are we we are, are we we are
The waiting unknown
This dirty town was burning down in my dreams
Lost and found, city bound in my dreams

(chorus)
And screaming
Are we we are, are we we are the waiting
And screaming
Are we we are, are we we are the waiting

And the chorus is all the more thrilling when thousands of concert-goers join in (see video below). The key line “are we we are, are we we are the waiting” can be completed with the words “for something better” or “for this bullshit to end.”

As noted by Billie Joe, the anti-hero is teetering on the edge and comes to the realization that the persona he presents to the world is ephemeral at best:

Forget me nots, second thoughts live in isolation
Heads or tails and fairy tales in my mind
Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown
The rage and love, the story of my life
The Jesus of Suburbia is a lie

“St. Jimmy”: There is no break between “Are We the Waiting” and “St. Jimmy,” communicating the anti-hero’s impatience to forge a new identity (it also explains why Billie Joe introduced “Are We the Waiting” as “St. Jimmy” in the live performance).

His impulsive nature will get the best of him, for by adopting the persona of St. Jimmy he turns into one unpleasant asshole.

My name is Jimmy, and you better not wear it out
Suicide commando that your momma talked about
King of the forty thieves, and I’m here to represent
The needle in the vein of the establishment
I’m the patron saint of the denial
With an angel face, and a taste for suicidal . . .

Are you talking to me?
I’ll give you something to cry about!

What a dick. Threatening suicide is one way to get the attention he craves, but he sounds more like the boy who cried wolf. His declaration of independence is appropriately set to the most aggressive music on the album, high-speed punk delivered with a sneering “fuck you all.” What he really needs right now is a swift kick in the balls, but St. Jimmy opts for another crutch.

“Give Me Novacaine”: Yes, I know how to spell novocaine, but that’s the way it appears in the track listing.

After the previous outburst, St. Jimmy calms down enough to seek medical treatment in the form of a numbing agent. In other words, he remains incapable of digging deeper into his soul to treat the real problem: the vulnerability he prefers to mask from the rest of the world:

Take away the sensation inside
Bittersweet migraine in my head
It’s like a throbbing toothache of the mind
I can’t take this feeling anymore

Drain the pressure from the swelling
This sensation’s overwhelming
Give me a long kiss goodnight
And everything’ll be alright
Tell me that I won’t feel a thing
So give me Novacaine

Billie Joe described the song as a “defining moment where you actually lose yourself into your own demons in a lot of ways.” Fair enough, but the line “give me a long kiss goodnight” sounds like a memory of a rare tender moment when his loser mother took care of him when he was sick, earning our anti-hero a modicum of compassion.

“She’s a Rebel”: Hooray! Jimmy’s got a girl! Well, kinda sorta . . This is the first of three consecutive songs dealing with the relationship involving St. Jimmy and Whatshername. Billie Joe shared his thoughts regarding the oddly-named character in the VH1 interview:

I think that the true hero of the whole record is the Whatsername character. She’s a person that never really wanes; she never really falls from grace. She’s the one that kind of stuck to her beliefs and left all the bullshit behind. The Whatsername character tells Jesus of Suburbia/St. Jimmy what they don’t want to hear, but inevitably that’s what they were going for to begin with, and that’s the twist of the whole thing.”

Just what the doctor ordered!

Unlike Jesus of Suburbia and his 7-11 companions who bitch about their victimization but do nothing about it, this girl has what might be termed a vision of a better future. In other words, she has her shit together:

She’s a rebel, she’s a saint
She’s the salt of the earth and she’s dangerous
She’s a rebel, vigilante
Missing link on the brink of destruction . . .

From Chicago to Toronto
She’s the one that they call ol’ Whatsername
She’s a symbol of resistance
And she’s holdin’ on my heart like a hand grenade . . .

She sings the revolution
The dawning of our lives
She brings this liberation
That I just can’t define
Well, nothin’ comes to mind

This is the only song on the album I’m tempted to qualify as “happy.” The music is upbeat and pleasantly melodic, and I think it’s nice that Jimmy has finally found someone who might be able to help him work through his troubles . . . might.

“Extraordinary Girl”: This tune is part ode to Whatsername and part uh-oh regarding her relationship with Jimmy. The first verse finds Jimmy engaging in third-person compare-and-contrast:

She’s an extraordinary girl
In an ordinary world
And she can’t seem to get away
He lacks the courage in his mind
Like a child left behind
Like a pet left in the rain

It seems that Whatsername finds herself running into the usual obstacles faced by a change agent, while Jimmy remains stuck in his victimization. As it turns out, part of what is troubling her is her inability to get through to Jimmy:

She’s all alone again
Wipin’ the tears from her eyes
Some days, he feels like dyin’
She gets so sick of cryin’

Whatshername “sees the mirror of herself/An image she wants to sell/To anyone willing to buy,” indicating either dissatisfaction with her attempt to change the world, the burden of Jimmy’s psychological issues, or the simple fact that Jimmy still doesn’t fucking get it. The frequent use of minor chords in the song hints that things are unlikely to end on a positive note.

“Letterbomb”: Given Jimmy’s description of Whatsername as a rebel, saint, vigilante and symbol of resistance, we can safely assume that the lyrics to “Letterbomb” consist of a Dear Jimmy letter written by Whatshername and that the song is mostly sung from her perspective.

Subliminally, it’s also a message to the Americans of the era to get off their asses and engage in mass protests of the Bush-Cheney mindfuck . . . and as luck would have it, Whatsername’s treatise is exceptionally relevant to Americans today.

The song opens with Kathleen Hanna singing (via telephone) a classic taunt reminiscent of high school bullying, clearly directed at Jimmy: “Nobody likes you/Everyone left you/They’re all out without you/Having fun.” After a brief pause, Green Day brings every ounce of rock ‘n’ roll power they have in their hearts to this song, filling both channels with Mike Dirnt’s potent bass, Tré Cool’s cascading drums and Billie Joe’s ripping guitar. Fuck yeah!

The first two verses condemn the absence of nationwide outrage in response to the mindfuck . . .  in a tone of utter outrage:

Where have all the bastards gone?
The underbelly stacks up ten high
The dummy failed the crash test
Collecting unemployment checks
Like a flunkie along for the ride

Where have all the riots gone?
As your city’s motto gets pulverized
What’s in love is now in debt
On your birth certificate
So strike the fucking match to light this fuse

The chorus echoes the great Yogi Berra’s quote, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” A true defender of democracy would never give up the fight:

It’s not over ’til you’re underground
It’s not over before it’s too late
This city’s burnin’
It’s not my burden
It’s not over before it’s too late
There’s nothing left to analyze

Whether it’s Jimmy responding to Whatsername’s fervent call to arms or Whatsername giving Jimmy a brutal piece of her mind, the truth finally comes out:

You’re not the Jesus of Suburbia
The St. Jimmy is a figment of
Your father’s rage and your mother’s love
Made me the Idiot America

As expected, his brief affair with Whatshername ends with a whimper:

She said, “I can’t take this place
I’m leaving it behind”
Well, she said, “I can’t take this town
I’m leaving you tonight”

“Wake Me Up When September Ends”: This touching number only belongs on American Idiot if you can find a way to insert the death of the anti-hero’s father into the narrative. While such an incident might help explain the hopelessness and loneliness of the main character, there are specific references to time periods in Billie Joe’s life that make it a poor fit. Here’s the real story:

Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1, 1982. At his father’s funeral, Billie cried, ran home and locked himself in his room. When his mother got home and knocked on the door to Billie’s room, Billie simply said, “Wake me up when September ends,” hence the title. (Songfacts)

Some people have associated the title with the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, and while those associations may not be logical, the application is entirely understandable:

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

It’s a beautiful song, though for once I wish Green Day had avoided turning on the power midway through and allowed the opening acoustic arrangement to continue to the end.

“Homecoming”: The second suite describes the end of the journey . . . a journey that eventually leads back to the end of the world.

I. “The Death of St. Jimmy”: Having lost the only person who mattered to him, Jimmy continues to mourn the loss of Whatsername in a passage accompanied by lo-fi guitar:

My heart is beatin’ from me
I am standin’ all alone
Please call me only
If you are comin’ home
Waste another year flies by
Waste a night or two
You taught me how to live

As the music shifts to solid rock with an engaging melody, Jimmy takes one last a shot at preaching his non-philosophy to “the crowd of pain,” meaning anyone he thinks might share his disillusionment:

In the crowd of pain
St. Jimmy comes without any shame
He says, “We’re fucked up, but we’re not the same
And Mom and Dad are the ones you can blame.”

Quite a few people have the misfortune of being born to lousy parents, but remaining stuck in blame mode gets you nowhere. The only explanation I can come up with for Jimmy’s failure to disconnect himself from his parents and vow to be unlike them is that misery is what he knows—and some people will stick with what they know, frequently to their detriment. In the end, the anti-hero decides it’s time to drop the pretense of St. Jimmy:

Jimmy died today
He blew his brains out into the bay
In the state of mind
It’s my own private suicide

Good riddance, say I . . . but the music is ab-fab.

II. “East 12th St.“: The suite continues non-stop with rougher guitars and intensifed rhythm. Free of his alter ego, Jesus of Suburbia bemoans his fate (“Well, nobody cares, well, nobody cares/Does anyone care if nobody cares?”) and reluctantly trudges off to find a job. A narrator enters the picture to tell us how the job search is going:

Jesus fillin’ out paperwork now
At the facility on East 12th Street
He’s not listening to a word now
He’s in his own world and he’s daydreaming
He’d rather be doin’ somethin’ else now
Like cigarettes and coffee with the underbelly
His life’s on the line with anxiety now
And she had enough, and he had plenty

I imagine him arriving at the interview sloppily dressed, unwilling to shake hands and answering all questions with monosyllables. The next passage reminds me of the stop-time sequence in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the part where Freddie Mercury cries, “Mama mia, mama mia!” In this case, the gaps are filled by quickly-strummed acoustic guitar:

Somebody get me out of here
Anybody get me out of here
Somebody get me out of here
Get me the fuck right out of here

And if I were the interviewer, I would reply, “Gladly! Right this way!” It appears that Jesus of Suburbia never had someone explain to him how the world works . . . and he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows what he doesn’t want: “the lifelike dream” of the American Idiot.

III. “Nobody Likes You” (Mike Dirnt): This piece opens with the sound of people talking (perhaps one of those parent-teacher conferences?) followed by a wordless reprise of the melody set to “Nobody likes you/Everyone left you/They’re all out without you/Having fun.” The instruments of choice are school bells, which suggests that the hazing the anti-hero encountered in school wreaked havoc on his self-esteem. The opening verse of Mike’s lead vocal is set to the same melody . . . while our anti-hero is stuck in neutral:

I fell asleep while watching Spike TV
After ten cups of coffee and you’re still not here
Dreamin’ of a song, but somethin’ went wrong
And you can’t tell anyone ’cause no one’s here

After a brief bridge, the “Nobody likes you” passage is repeated (with words), and I visualize the anti-hero scrunched up on a sofa, crying his eyes out, trying desperately to get those haunting messages out of his head. As I wrote in the introduction, this was a very difficult time to come of age.

IV. “Rock and Roll Girlfriend” (Tré Cool): We could use a little humor right now and even contextual black humor will do. The last thing Jesus of Suburbia wants to hear is a story of someone making a life for himself, and Tré rubs it in by playing the role of rock star with all the stereotypical trimmings:

Jeez . . .

I got a rock and roll band, I got a rock and roll life
I got a rock and roll girlfriend and another ex-wife
I got a rock and roll house, I got a rock and roll car
I play the shit out the drums and I can play the guitar
I got a kid in New York, I got a kid in the Bay
I haven’t drank or smoked nothin’ in over twenty-two days
(Don’t want to be an American idiot)
So get off my case, off of my case
Off of my case!

Unsurprisingly, this snippet flies like a bat out of hell.

V. “We’re Coming Home Again”: The closing act of the second suite ends with a majesty similar to the close of “Jesus of Suburbia,” but the triumphant music masks the sad reality: our anti-hero is coming home because he has nowhere to go and nothing to do. It seems that other escapees have also capitulated to reality:

Here they come, marchin’ down the street
Like a desperation murmur of a heartbeat
Comin’ back from the edge of town
Underneath their feet
The time has come and it’s goin’ nowhere
Nobody ever said that life was fair now
Go-carts and guns are treasures they will bear
In the summer heat

The world is spinnin’ ’round and ’round out of control again
The 7-Eleven to the fear of breakin’ down
So send my love a letterbomb
And visit me in Hell

We’re the ones goin’ . . .
Home, we’re comin’ home again
Home, we’re comin’ home again
I started fuckin’ runnin’ as soon as my feet touched ground
We’re back in the barrio, and to you and me, that’s Jingletown

There are plenty of theories regarding how and why so many American kids got so fucked up during the new millenium (pharma solutions, working parents, lousy child care, uncaring adults, mandatory testing, pushing kids with artistic leanings into STEM programs, parents insisting on the “best schools” without trying to improve the schools in place, linking education to the economy, etc.) but no one came up with solutions that weren’t drenched in politics, both local and national. The only workable solution is to learn a child’s true talents and desires, teach them what they need to know and allow them to manifest their true selves . . . but such a proposal would never be taken seriously in the USA.

“Whatsername”: We close with an epilogue regarding the only person who truly gave a shit about our anti-hero before he pushed her away with his negativity.

The song opens with drums and a steady, slightly muffled, picked bass driving the rhythm. Billie Jo enters after the second-go-round, his voice conveying something between sadness and resignation as Jesus of Suburbia thumbs through his memory bank:

Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream

I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away, and then I took a different path
I remember the face, but I can’t recall the name
Now I wonder how Whatsername has been

The music eventually shifts to high power as thoughts and memories spin inside his brain. He resents how she dumped him but still admits there was something special about the relationship that continues to live within him—something that may help him break the cycle of despair.

Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
(Remember) the regrets
(Whatever) are useless in my mind
(It seems like forever ago) she’s in my head, I must confess . . .

And in the darkest night
If my memory serves me right
I’ll never turn back time
Forgetting you but not the time

And so ends a true American masterpiece.

*****

It’s something of a wonder that American Idiot ever came to life. Rumors of a breakup began swirling in early 2004 (the year of its release) and in turns out that the rumors had some substance:

Green Day’s core trio has stayed the same since 1990, but in the early 2000s, the band nearly ended. “Breaking up was an option,” bassist Mike Dirnt told Rolling Stone. “We were arguing a lot and we were miserable. We needed to shift directions.” Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong sensed that his bandmates viewed him more as a boss than as a collaborator, an unworkable situation. “To be in the greatest band in the world, we have to work on the small stuff,” he said. Amidst that tension, Armstrong instituted weekly band therapy sessions. “Admitting that we care for each other was a big thing,” drummer Tré Cool said. The openness led to musical experimentation, more than four months of recording, and a 20-track album called “Cigarettes and Valentines,” virtually ready for release. Then it got stolen — the master tapes disappeared from the band’s Oakland, California, studio.

For such a massive setback to occur in that tender time proved temporarily devastating. Armstrong abandoned his wife and two children to melt down alone in New York. He “drank a lot of red wine and vodka tonics,” Armstrong said. “I was searching for something. I’m not sure it was the most successful trip.” Rather than re-record the lost album upon his return to California, Armstrong instead pitched a new project — a politically charged LP with a loose story structure. That idea would evolve into 2004’s “American Idiot.” (Grunge.com)

All I know is this: American Idiot is an album that had to be made by somebody, and I’m eternally grateful that the band members worked through their issues to give despairing Millennials a needed blast of truth-telling while encouraging us to fight the good fight.

And today I am grateful for the experience of immersing myself in some of the best kick-ass rock ever made. GodDAMN that felt good!