Green Day: My Gateway Drug to Rock | Also Song Recommendations
The term ‘Green Day’ refers to a day spent doing nothing but smoking pot. Marijuana is known as a Gateway Drug, like when you dip your toes in the pool before taking a dive—into harder drugs, in this case. That’s what Green Day was to me, a Gateway Drug; and my drug is called Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Yes, I am aware of how clichéd and corny it sounds, I feel like Jack Black from School of Rock—great movie by the way, also a contributor in my plunge into Rock—but the more I think about it, the more I stand by my analogy.
It started when I was 12. I don’t really remember why, but I ended up typing “21 Guns” in Youtube’s search bar. I remember how beautiful the lyrics were, appearing on my screen from the lyric video I was watching. The music was unlike the pop music that I was convinced was the only music that existed at the time. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I was still a One Direction fan at that point. And yes, I am a guy.
Moving on from that embarrassing phase—I swear 6th grade me did not know any better—listening to Green Day was a magical experience. The next songs I listened to which appeared on the Recommended list were American Idiot, and Holiday. Albeit sounding relatively foreign to me, I had been exposed to enough 2000’s alternative—which I never really gotten into—that made it feel familiar enough. Still though, it was way different from everything I’ve listened to. As I got deeper into listening to Green Day on Youtube, I stumbled upon Basket Case, a 90’s hit. Now, this one is a classic, great music video too, but the next song I listened to was what changed it all.
Longview was the weirdest of all. It sounded the most foreign to me. It was raw; it had a different kind of angst from their 2000’s work. Listening to it now almost five years later, I’d describe the sound as pure, rebellious, angst-driven rock. Back then it was just weird. The combination of hearing the word ‘masturbation’, and seeing it pop up on my scream at the same time—again, lyric video—was just screaming “turn this off!” to my face. Which I did. I felt like I just escaped from a hole of weirdness. In retrospect, I don’t know why I found it so weird, but that feeling was just unlike anything else. I later came back to Longview; as I’ve learned after that, I appreciated a song more after listening to it a few times. I proceeded to listen to the rest of Dookie, the album that Longview and Basket Case were from. Let me just tell you, it was amazing. It was fucking magical. I don’t really know how to put in into words, but what I felt while listening to that album, I had never felt before and had never felt again.
All it took was three instruments, and one of the most iconic voices in Rock to put me on a path that I can never look back from. After learning that their genre was pop punk—a term that I eventually grew to hate—I began to listen to punk bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Nirvana, The Stooges… honestly, I listened to so many bands that I don’t even remember most of them. That was my punk phase. Next came my hard rock phase led by Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC. There’s also my Emo phase, indie phase, alternative phase, recently even a blues phase.
I can go on and on about how Green Day changed my life, I mean they singlehandedly made me reject my religion, but that’s a different story all together. This is just a testament to how music can changes lives. The first full song I ever learned on guitar was Basket Case. Now I have a band, kinda; I’ve auditioned for the school talent show, a terrible experience; I’ve gigged twice now, unpaid though, one was my bandmates’ work Christmas party, and one was our rhythm guitarist’s wedding—their all like twice my age by the way, again, another story.
If you haven’t gotten around to listening to Green Day, here are some of my favorites.
1. Longview. Obviously. For a long time, this was my favorite. The song starts off with Tré’s unmistakable drumming; you hear those tomtoms and you already know what song it is. Then slides in Mike’s iconic bassline. Seriously, that riff will just make you want to learn the bass. Dookie just has some of my favorite bass tones and Mike’s the one that made me love the lower frequencies. Billie Joe then sings about boredom and masturbation, something all teenagers, and some adults, can relate too. “Call me pathetic, call me what you will. My mother says to get a job, but she don’t like the one she’s got. When masturbation’s lost its fun, you’re fucking breaking.”
2. Basket Case. Probably there biggest hit from the 90’s. Billie Joe deals with his anxiety the only way he knew how: singing about it over the chords of Pachelbel’s Canon. Kidding aside, this song is great. The lyrics come in with the guitar, no intros, and straight to the point. Keep in mind that Billie Joe had no idea what he was feeling at the time, he just thought he was going crazy, “Sometimes I give myself the creeps…I think I’m cracking up, am I just paranoid, am I just stoned?” tripping on acid probably didn’t help either. He later found out that he suffered from panic attacks.
3. When I Come Around. Again, from Dookie. Yes, I am biased. It’s my favorite album of all time, okay? The chord progression to this song is pretty common I-V-VI-IV, but Billie Joe’s palm muting makes it sound so distinct. And did I mention that Billie Joe has some of the best guitar tones? Well he does. I mean it. Anyways, here he talks about a strained relationship, I think. Some great lines from this one are, “I’m a loser and a user so I don’t need no accuser,” and, “You may find out that your self doubt means nothing as ever there. You can’t go forcing somethin’ if it’s just not right.”
4. Jesus of Suburbia. Now here’s one from American Idiot, which came a whole decade after Dookie. Everyone knows the titular track, but it’s the one that came after that’s one of my favorites. This monster of a track is a whopping nine minutes and eight seconds long. To give you some background, the album American Idiot is a rock opera about Jesus of Suburbia who leaves his life in the suburbs for the city. He then meets awesomely named characters such as Whatsername, his love interest whom he forgets the name of, and Saint Jimmy who is actually just his alterego. Sounds awesome right? The song is actually five songs in one. Without getting too much into the story, the five movements are Jesus of Suburbia, City of the Damned—my favorite, with lines like “It says home is where your heart is but what a shame ‘cause everyone’s heart doesn’t beat the same,” and, “City of the damned, lost children with dirty faces today. No one really seems to care.”—, the third one is I Don’t Care, then Dearly Beloved—my second favorite—, and ends with Tales of Another Broken Home. Listening to this song feels like watching a short film. You have to listen to the whole album too. To put into perspective how awesome this album is, it was even adapted into a Broadway musical. Now, tell me that isn’t cool.
5. Minority. Okay, so maybe I should have picked songs from albums besides their two biggest ones. So this one is from Warning. Not as popular as the other songs, but this was my anthem back in 7th grade. This has some of Green Day’s best lyrics. “One light, one mind, flashing in the dark. Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts. For crying out loud, she screamed onto me. A free for all, fuck ‘em all, you are your own sight.” This song just screams, “I’m fucking punk. Fuck you.” Pardon my French.
This post is long enough so I won’t be talking in depth about more songs, but some more good ones are Good Riddance, Holiday, Brain Stew, Hitchin’ a Ride, and Redundant. Also don’t forget to listen to their songs pre Dookie, which was when they blew up. Listen to Going to Pasalacqua, 2000 Light Years Away, and One of My Lies—remember when I said Green Day made me reject religion? It was with this song.
Hopefully you’d fall in love with them the same way I did. If you don’t, well everyone’s got different tastes. Most of the songs in their discography are pretty good, though the Trilogy—Uno, Dos, and Tré are almost universally hated. Think Star Wars prequels. Also give their new album Revolution Radio a listen; I don’t really like it though, the 90’s were really their prime.
Also, the members are Billie Joe Armstrong on guitars and vocals, Mike Dirnt on bass, and Tré Cool on Drums. They also had a 4th member from 2012-2016, Jason White as a second guitarist. So now you’re all set to start listening to Green Day. Enjoy!
This is my first post by the way, what did you think? I plan on reviewing and recommending bands every Monday. The purpose of this is to explore new music. If you have artist recommendations, feel free to reply. Thanks for reading!