Tag Archives: green day

#1377: Green Day – Tight Wad Hill

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Anyone remember the Green Day: Rock Band game? Came as a shock to me when it was initially announced in 2010. It was so close to the Beatles game that had been out for only over half a year at the time, and I like Green Day but I also felt there would have been so many more classic rock bands Harmonix could have dedicated a Rock Band game to. Like Led Zeppelin, or The Who or something. Green Day was a cool choice, though. I wasn’t complaining. I got the game. It was fun to play through the whole of American Idiot, Dookie, a large majority of 21st Century Breakdown and other well-known Green Day songs. Green Day was my favourite band for a while in 2005. By 2010, I’d had physical copies of Dookie, American Idiot, International Superhits… even 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours for years. But I think it was the release of this game that provided the impetus to dive deeper into the band’s discography as the year went on.

One day I came upon Insomniac, the band’s pissed-off, harder rocking follow-up to Dookie, the band’s big breakthrough album that had only been released a year before. It’s my favourite album of theirs because of the previously listed adjectives. I was well-acquainted with the singles from there, which I never fell out of love with, and the other songs on there were just more of the same. ‘Tight Wad Hill’ is the second-last number on Insomniac. I’ve been around Green Day forums and Reddit pages, and it looked to me that whenever there’s a ranking going on ‘Tight Wad…’ is the tune that’s always rated the worst or the least best. I remember liking it off the rip. Before then, I’d read about how it was almost the title track of the album before the bandmembers decided on ‘Insomniac’, so I reckoned it must have been considered a bit of an important song amongst the band during the album’s making.

Reasons I could think of, though. It follows the musical pattern of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-instrumental break-chorus that’s damn near on every other song on the album. The song details the depressing experiences of a drug addict, and that’s already covered with ‘Geek Stink Breath’, which also provides a more personal level of perspective. It’s also near the album’s end, so listeners are probably just waiting to see how the whole thing officially finishes. But it’s fast, it hits hard – Tré Cool’s pounding away on his drum set – it’s heavy, makes me wanna scrunch my face up. Billie Joe Armstrong’s sings an infectious melody with a snotty snarl, and Mike Dirnt’s playing some very cool lines on the bass guitar. And that’s Insomniac all over. ‘Tight Wad Hill’ does the job, it’s a great representative. Just a shame the band rarely play anything from this album. Insomniac appreciators out there, I’m with you.

#1300: Green Day – Stuck with Me

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Green Day’s Insomniac will be out for 30 years this coming October. Not like I can say its initial release was something I was aware of at the time, being that I would have only been six months old. But having been a fan of the band since 2005 and followed their work up until the Uno! Dos! Tré days, becoming familiar with the majority of their discography in the process, I can firmly state that Insomniac is my favourite album. I don’t think this should be any kind of breaking news to anyone reading, ’cause I’m fairly sure I’ve said the same thing in a previous Green Day-Insomniac post. But if you are a first-time reader, then, hey, my favourite album of Green Day’s is Insomniac. It’s still their most in-your-face straight-out punk record they’ve done, filled with self-deprecation. That attitude strikes a chord with me. And ‘Stuck with Me’ is a highlight from there.

Me and ‘Stuck with Me’ go way, way back. Most likely back to those days of ’05 when I was really getting into Green Day at the time. Their official website allowed you to watch all of the music videos for their singles through Windows Media Player. The track, being a single from Insomniac – second after ‘Geek Stink Breath’ – got a music video of its own. One that I can only describe as the artwork for Insomniac come to life contrasted with a monochrome performance of the band playing the track in a small room. I didn’t have the greatest of Internet connections back in those days. When it came to watching music videos on Windows Media Player, a lot of the time was spent waiting on buffering so maybe an additional few seconds could play before it would stop again. I want to say ‘Stuck with Me’ was one of the rare, rare moments when the video played the whole way through without stopping. But that might be my mind playing tricks on me. But simple and plain, it was those repeated views/listens that got me into the track, and it’s stuck around in the mental plane ever since.

All this time, I’ve never sat down and pondered on what this song could be about. A quick skim through the lyrics, I get a sense of someone who feels comfort in being something of an outsider. Or someone who spits in the faces of the upper classes or phonies and takes great pride in it. They’re all right being the “scrub” they might be perceived to be. But at the same time, they’re also not all right. Perhaps mentally, physically, it’s not really stated. Most likely the former, when considering the subject matter of other songs on the record. Whatever lyrically is going on, it goes hand in hand with the constant rush of energy the music provides. The opening downward riff is an instant hook. And if you’re looking for some good bass guitar work, it just so happens that Insomniac is arguably the record on which bassist Mike Dirnt played a lot of his best lines. Before the last chorus on ‘Stuck with Me’, Dirnt gets his own almost-solo on his instrument accompanied by an appropriate thrashing on the drums by Tré Cool. Like a lot of good punk songs, it’s over before you probably want to get a little more into it. I think it gives more than enough in the time it lasts for. I could listen to it all the time.

#1163: Green Day – Scattered

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Feels like I only ever write about Green Day songs from Nimrod lately. Two of them did appear in the ‘R’ section, and sure that would have been months ago at this point. But the last song from another Green Day album I wrote about was ‘Pulling Teeth’, and that was over a year ago. Not that I want to sound like I’m complaining. That’s a tone I always aim to try and avoid when writing these things. Nimrod‘s up there in my favourite Green Day albums. It’s one of the first albums I downloaded to my old computer when I was properly getting into sitting down and listening to albums in about ’09. This is a story I’ve told before. But as a result, although it might not be the favourite Green Day album of mine, it does hold a special place for sure.

‘Scattered’ is fifth track on there, and is an example of the band being at their most power-poppest, for lack of a better adjective. It’s surprising to me that it wasn’t a single back in the Nimrod times, because it definitely could have been one. Though maybe it’s just a case that it was the obvious choice for a single that the band decided against it. If that makes sense. Being punk rock and all. But it ticks all the right boxes. There’s something about the song that makes it sound like it should have been existing way before the ’90s. Think it’s all down to the melody. Such an accessible one that you’d think it would have been used by any other songwriter to have existed before Billie Joe Armstrong and co. got the track down. But as far as I’m aware, there’s no song from the decades that preceded it whose melody was stolen, nabbed or tweaked in order to ‘Scattered’ the track it is.

The song is about a person who goes on a bit of an emotional trip after seeing a bunch of pictures ‘scattered’ on the floor, containing images of another person of interest who they miss tremendously. A wave of regret and despair comes crashing in, and the narrator wishes that they could be together again. Quite sad stuff that you maybe wouldn’t pick up on at first because of the track’s velocity and general catchiness. I’m gonna assume that the lyrics do come from a personal place. Billie Joe Armstrong at the point of Nimrod was already married and had had a child. Being the frontman of a band who was continuously on tour throughout ’94 to ’96 would have taken its toll. So I think the track’s a little love letter to his wife. Possibly. Anyone can tell me I’m wrong. But all in all, I enjoy this one a lot. Won’t get a skip from me.

#1108: Green Day – Reject

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Hey, look at that, another Green Day song. And so soon. Oh, and it’s from Nimrod again too. Well, that’s just swell. I couldn’t repeat how I came across it after having done that so recently. I’m at a bit of a loss here, people. What’s an introductory paragraph if I’ve already done the introduction in another recent post? I may have to write a little less for this post. And not because I don’t think this song’s any lesser than all the others on here. Merely because it’s just over two minutes in length, and it’s over as soon as you’ve blinked a couple hundred times. In the album where Green Day branched out and experimented with their sound a little, ‘Reject’ is one of the few outright punk rock tracks on there that brings things to familiar territory.

The backstory of the song’s lyrical subject matter is quite humorous. In 1996, Billie Joe Armstrong received a letter from a disgruntled mother whose son received a copy of the band’s Insomniac album for their birthday. Now, you’d ask what was she expecting? I would agree with you. It’s like someone in the family had no idea who Green Day was and got the son this present. Or the son knew exactly what music the band made and was trying to hide it. Anyway, Armstrong got this letter, thought the sentiment was stupid and wrote a reply – a lyric in ‘Reject’ is taken verbatim from it. The rest of the song’s lyrics are what I guess to be an extension of what he would have wanted to write to this parent, had he thought it was worth the ink he was writing with.

Coming right after a slower, walking-paced track on the album, ‘Reject’ makes its presence known immediately with a commanding drum fill from Tré Cool before the rest of the band launch into frame and Armstrong delivers the song’s first line. The track is fast and furious (sorry) in its delivery. The rhythm’s punchy and emphatic, I’m a fan of the open/closed hi-hat work from Cool during the verses, and those chord changes in the “You’re not my type” sections are pretty awesome too. The second verse comes along with more of the same with the second chorus following after. Dirnt takes the forefront in the breakdown with some really fast octave-jumping bass work before the band build some tension, staying on one chord for a matter of moments before finishing it all off with a strong finish. The track’s a good kick-out-the-jams moment at the time it arrives on Nimrod. Like I said, I think it’s just a reminder that the band could still deliver some good, ol’ fast punk rock if listeners were feeling their way through the changes in style that happened between the album’s songs up to that point. And it’s some good work, that’s all I can say.

#1106: Green Day – Redundant

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Green Day’s Nimrod was one of the first albums I ever thought to download to my computer. Up until about 2008/09, I was solely into getting CDs for birthdays and Christmas presents. When I did try and various individual songs from websites, I would then be reprimanded by my sister who’d wag her finger at me and tell me it was a bad thing to do. But I carried on doing it like the rebellious youth I was. In 2009, 21st Century Breakdown had just been released, a long while since American Idiot. I already owned the latter, Dookie and 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (for some reason) in physical forms – so I guess the downloading of Nimrod was just a way of completing a mission to hear the rest of Green Day’s discography. This was before all the streaming of today, it was a much more difficult task back in those times.

I was already very familiar with Nimrod’s fourth track, though. It’s ‘Redundant’, a song that was also released as the album’s third single in its era of ’97/’98. When I was a small, small boy, going back to 2005, I thought Green Day’s ‘Holiday’ was the best song in the world. I thought Green Day was so cool. So I found their website, and all of their music videos were available to watch on there. It took a lot of buffering on Windows Media Player to get those things running smoothly. But when they worked, that was it. The gateway into Green Day had opened. I say all this to say the video for ‘Redundant’ was on the site too. I’d watch it occasionally. It wasn’t one of the videos I’d repeatedly revisit compared to those for, say, ‘Stuck with Me’, ‘Minority’ or ‘Walking Contradiction’. But I did think it was a great song still. So when coming back to it in 2009 and hearing it within the actual context of Nimrod, the memory of watching its video brought the melodies and all back to me and reminded me how finely written a song it was.

Wikipedia and Genius appear to share the same thought that the song is inspired by frontman and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong’s relationship with his wife and how things weren’t going so great within it at the time of writing. There’s no interview or any quote that backs that up, however. So, with the hope of not repeating something that might not be the case, I’ll just say the song is about a general relationship that’s lost its spark and turned into one where the day-by-day efforts feel phoned-in and forced, so much so that even saying ‘I love you’ doesn’t fill the void. Two verses, three choruses and an instrumental break is all that’s needed to express the sentiments in the track, with the three members all contributing toward a solid performance. It’s not a song of gigantic changes in dynamics or sudden changes in direction. It’s all rather mid-tempo. But I always sort of clench my fists and screw my face whenever those choruses comes in with the descending chord progression, the pummeling tom-toms and Billie Joe Armstrong’s passionate vocal. There’s just so much emotion throughout. And that’s where this song succeeds for me.