Tag Archives: green day

#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.

#1072: Green Day – Pulling Teeth

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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.

#932: Green Day – No Pride

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After becoming jaded with the phenomenal success of Dookie, Green Day headed into the studio to begin work on that album’s follow up. Angry at the world, fuelled on methamphetamine, and, in particularly Billie Joe Armstrong’s case, walking around having barely reached the minimum hours needed to sleep because of a newborn child, the band produced track after track of no nonsense, pissed off punk rock that was eventually unveiled to the world as Insomniac in October 1995. The album was a lot darker in tone, from the artwork to the lyrical content, a lot of which took on a point of view along the lines of “why bother with anything in life because we all die and everything in between is pointless.”

A lot of tracks on there take on this nihilistic approach. ‘No Pride’ is a prime example. Its first line, “Well I am just a mutt, and nowhere is my home”, sets a base straight away. From there, Armstrong tells the listener to forget about hope, forget unity, don’t stand up for what you believe in, forget about your morals and values. Basically disregard all things that arguably make you a decent human being. At that point in time, he must have done so and felt no shame hence the track’s sentiment of having no pride. There are two verses and two choruses. And after a rushing instrumental break which repeats the opening chord progression four times with no solo or change up, the track falls right into the final chorus, tail-ended with the closing lines where Armstrong tells us to “close your eyes and die.”

It’s a good time all-in-all. The subject matter may be a downer, but is elevated by the simple yet effective melodies throughout and the propelling speed that track is played at. All three members perform at their most forceful throughout this album, and with an attitude that they’d never fully revisit again. Dookie may be the more popular record, that goes without saying, but those who really know about Insomniac recognise its power.

#918: Green Day – Nice Guys Finish Last

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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.

#845: Green Day – Minority

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‘Minority’ by Green Day. This is a track I’ve known and really liked for a long time now. Was one of the videos I watched on repeat on the band’s website when I was really into them in ’05. So much so that I remember my aunt making fun of the way Billie Joe Armstrong sang the track’s first line. But I liked it then, and still do today. It’s the penultimate track on Warning, but was released as the first single from it, and is one of those “fuck the Man, I’m doing me” type of songs.

I’m in that group who say Warning is an underrated album. It might not have the grandiosity of an American Idiot or a 21st Century Breakdown, but the simplicity of all its songs really highlight the band’s chemistry and Billie Joe’s melodic talents. And ‘Minority’ has one of the most memorable singalong moments on there. The whole track is like one long chorus, and I appreciate this. The one part of the track that I really like is the “Stepped out of the line” section, and that only appears once before changing back to the pre-chorus again. Kinda leaves me wanting more. But as it stands, the track’s still one of the best from the album.

I think it’s fair to say the band like it too. It’s a staple in their live performances. Sometimes the band stretch the track out for about eight to ten minutes to allow a lot of instrumental breaks, crowd banter and “hey-heys” and “hey-ohs” and “ay ay ays”. While those are all probably very nice when in the moment, I’ll take the studio recording any day.