Green Day’s ‘Pulling Teeth’ gets a bit of an unfair deal. The sixth track on the band’s massive breakthrough major-label debut Dookie from 1994, it’s sandwiched by two of the trio’s most well-known and well-beloved songs (singles, too) in ‘Welcome to Paradise’ and ‘Basket Case’. Kinda sticks out like a sore thumb in its placement too, marking a sudden change in pace compared to the other songs that surround it on the album’s first half. But with all that being said, I’d still much rather listen to ‘Pulling Teeth’ rather than those other two. Would explain why there isn’t a ‘Basket Case’ post on here, nor will there be one for ‘Paradise’ either. I’ve just heard both too many times, you know? Sort of lost their power after a while.

The lyrics don’t leave much to the imagination. What you see/hear is what you get. And what that is is the account of a narrator who’s been physically abused by their girlfriend and is having a bit of an internal crisis about the whole situation. Inspired by a real-life incident where bassist Mike Dirnt broke both his elbows during a playful pillow-fight with an ex-girlfriend, the track takes things to the next level where this injury is caused on purpose leaving the narrator to deal with something of a bit of an existential crisis as they ponder on whether this relationship is really worth continuing with all the pain that’s bound to happen.

And despite the somewhat heavy subject matter, the track’s general tone is one of a relaxed kind that’s established from the very start with those dream-like, hazy guitar chords. They only alternate between two chords, but just the sound of them have this entrancing quality which I can’t pin down a cause to. Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt pretty much harmonize throughout the whole track on lead vocals, and I can’t think of another Green Day song where this occurs. From what I know, it’s usually Mike Dirnt coming up with harmonies here and there. But for an entire track? Surely, this must be the only one. I’ve seen comments that commend it for its Beatles-like quality, which I guess I can see. Not sure about similarities to the Beatles myself. I hear an almost surf-rock influence in there, but I don’t know of any bands to base this opinion on. Whatever’s going on here, I’m all for it. Everyone will go for the big hits from Dookie, but from the majority of other posts I’ve done for the album on here, you can see I’m for the deeper cuts. And with that, you’ll never see Dookie here again. More Green Day though, for sure.