Green Day’s Nimrod goes down as the album of the band’s where Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool decided to experiment a little bit. Steering away from the harsh, pessimistic tone of Insomniac a couple years before, the three pursued in writing material that covered different styles of rock music and utilising a wider range of instrumentation. Outside of Dookie and American Idiot, it’s probably the record that’s loved the most amongst Green Day fans. But before all the experimentation starts, it all kicks off with a nice traditional punk-rock track in the form of ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’.

The song isn’t really about anything in particular. A lot of the lyrics are just common sayings and phrases from everyday life – case in point, the title – that Armstrong puts some sarcastic and joking twists on. Not to scoff at anyone who has found some level of meaning or a story in the words, but I truly feel there’s nothing that the listener is supposed to latch onto. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it because you definitely can. What helps the track is the band’s overall performance and the great melodies throughout. What normally gets me pumped throughout is Tré Cool’s drumming. It’s fair to say he’s never been the weak point in Green Day song, but in this particular one it seems like he doesn’t have any moment to breathe. One moment he’s rapidly tapping away on the hi-hat before switching to the ride cymbal and throwing in all those fills in between. There’s a moment where Armstrong does this grunt thing before the last instrumental section of the track that’ll caught me surprise upon first listen, but feels very appropriate within the context the more times you hear it.

On a personal level, it took me a while to warm up to this track. I’d known it since about 2005 when I was really into Green Day. It was probably the second band I properly geeked out on after The Darkness. The music video (as you can see above) was on the band’s website. I thought the track was all right and nothing much, but I was nine/ten at the time and didn’t know much better. Probably because compared to ‘Hitchin’ a Ride’, it sounded too normal. Now I listen to ‘Nice Guys’ more than I do ‘Hitchin”. It just does the job.