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Green Day "Long Songs" Album Pattern


maryjanewhatsername

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So there's something I've noticed on Green Day albums that came out after American Idiot with the longer songs on the albums. So, I've noticed that the longer songs that kind of change into something different throughout the song (my boyfriend and I affectionately call this "Green Daying", when songs change in the middle). There's usually one song that "green days" in the beginning of the album (either the first or the second song) and the second to last song is the other song that "green days" on this particular albums. The albums I've mostly noticed that do this are American Idiot, 21st Century Breakdown, and Revolution Radio (not so sure about the Trilogy, they have their own patterns it seems). To kind of further explain it, I've highlighted the songs that do the green day thing in the following track lists green:

 

American Idiot (2004)

1. American Idiot 2:54

2. Jesus of Suburbia 9:08

3. Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams 8:14

4. We Are The Waiting / St. Jimmy 5:38

5. Give Me Novacaine / She's a Rebel 5:26

6. Extraordinary Girl / Letterbomb 7:40

7. Wake Me Up When September Ends 4:46

8. Homecoming 9:19

9. Whatsername 4:12

 

21st Century Breakdown (2009)

1. Song of the Century 0:58

2. 21st Century Breakdown 5:09

3. Know Your Enemy 3:11

4. ¡Viva La Gloria! 3:31

5. Before The Lobotomy 4:37

6. Christian's Inferno 3:07

7. Last Night On Earth 3:57

8. East Jesus Nowhere 4:35

9. Peacemaker 3:24

10. Last of the American Girls 3:51

11. Murder City 2:54

12. ¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) 3:48

13. Restless Heart Syndrome 4:21

14. Horseshoes and Hand Grenades 3:14

15. The Static Age 4:17

16. 21 Guns 5:21

17. American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria / Modern World 4:26

18. See The Light 4:36

 

Revolution Radio (2016)

1. Somewhere Now 4:09

2. Bang Bang 3:25

3. Revolution Radio 3:00

4. Say Goodbye 3:39

5. Outlaws 5:02

6. Bouncing Off The Wall 2:40

7. Still Breathing 3:44

8. Youngblood 2:32

9. Too Dumb To Die 3:23

10. Troubled Times 3:04

11. Forever Now 6:52

12. Ordinary World 3:00

 

So I also included the track times because it was interesting to me that not only are these more complicated songs usually longer than most of the other tracks, but they are usually similar lengths to the other long complicated song in each album. (Jesus of Suburbia 9:08 and Homecoming 9:19, 21st Century Breakdown 5:09 and American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria / Modern World 4:26, Somewhere Now 4:09 and Forever Now 6:52).

Also, these songs are generally split into 3 parts, each part in either a different time signature or key, or both. In the last third of Forever Now, it also calls back to Somewhere Now. Just kind of weird, but I noticed these things and thought I'd share.

What do you guys think of all this? Do you think it's on purpose?

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Interesting topic. I don't think it's done exactly like that purposely but I think it probably is part of their "formula" to have 2 long songs (or multi-part songs) near the start and end of these albums. You could say that the album Tré follows this formula as well, with Brutal Love (5 minutes long, I consider it to have multiple parts i.e. 1. Slower section, 2. The Build Up, 3. Drop Dead Hideous) at the start and Dirty Rotten Bastards near the end (6:26, also multi-part). I think the only real difference with Tré is that the sections of these songs weren't named like they were in the AI and RR songs and in American Eulogy from 21CB

What's interesting is people always mention the reprise of Somewhere Now in Forever Now as particularly interesting and unique about the track and I agree, I do really like that part of the song too and the slight changing of lyrics. But, they did basically the exact same thing with 21st Century Breakdown as well. The beginning of American Eulogy is just a reprise of Song of the Century. As well as that, the intro to 21st Century Breakdown is reused in See the Light, right after American Eulogy. I feel like people forget about that when they talk about the Somewhere Now reprise

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Billie has talked about being a fan of the album format in that he likes that the songs speak to each other so I’m sure the callback of the latter songs to the former are examples of this.

Also, when they wrote the first song of this type (Homecoming) they said it was an attempt to write a multi-part song similar to The Who’s A Quick One so that explains that. They’ve covered that song and consider it along with The Who’s rock opera formats to be a major influence on their post 2000’s sound.

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20 minutes ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

The beginning of American Eulogy is just a reprise of Song of the Century. 

Weird.  The Itunes version of the song doesn't do that.  It just goes straight into Mass Hysteria.

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28 minutes ago, Montclare said:

Weird.  The Itunes version of the song doesn't do that.  It just goes straight into Mass Hysteria.

Spotify cuts Song of The Century off as a separate track and so maybe iTunes cuts the tracks up differently. 

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3 hours ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

But, they did basically the exact same thing with 21st Century Breakdown as well. The beginning of American Eulogy is just a reprise of Song of the Century. As well as that, the intro to 21st Century Breakdown is reused in See the Light, right after American Eulogy. I feel like people forget about that when they talk about the Somewhere Now reprise

I totally forgot about that! But that's true. I wonder if they will carry that trend to the next album? 

And I like what you said about Tré. I can kind of see that, too. Definitely in Dirty Rotten Bastards and Brutal Love, so for at least part of the trilogy they kept the pattern.

I just can't see this being accidental. Especially with how Billie loves track order and creating the feel for the album with song placement, I feel like this pattern is either purposeful or as accidental as it can get would be "let's not have these two long ass songs next to each other" 

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6 hours ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Spotify cuts Song of The Century off as a separate track and so maybe iTunes cuts the tracks up differently. 

Song of the Century is a different song though. The intro to American Eulogy is similar to SOTC but different lyrics. (“Sing us the song of the century/Sings like American Eulogy/The dawn of my love and conspiracy/Forgotten hope and the class of 13/Tell me a story into that goodnight/Sing us a song for me”). So Spotify doesn’t have that?

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5 hours ago, DeJennsitized said:

Song of the Century is a different song though. The intro to American Eulogy is similar to SOTC but different lyrics. (“Sing us the song of the century/Sings like American Eulogy/The dawn of my love and conspiracy/Forgotten hope and the class of 13/Tell me a story into that goodnight/Sing us a song for me”). So Spotify doesn’t have that?

No it does, I was just wondering if iTunes separated the tracks in different places than Spotify or other streaming services. 

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43 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

No it does, I was just wondering if iTunes separated the tracks in different places than Spotify or other streaming services. 

Oh right, that’s still strange to think iTunes could split a song in a different place. That basically makes two new songs! 

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22 minutes ago, DeJennsitized said:

Oh right, that’s still strange to think iTunes could split a song in a different place. That basically makes two new songs! 

Twice the money if you think about it. I wonder if BOBD/Holiday and Novacaine/She’s A Rebel are combined on iTunes like they are on Spotify. It would be stupid since you get two songs for the price of one and they’re not maximizing their sales. Even on a streaming service it means fewer streams (unless it goes by total minutes but I think it’s tracks). That’s why newer pop/hip hop, etc albums aware of how the business works are releasing albums with more and shorter tracks. Combined tracks and 9 minute songs really work against you financially in an era of streaming. 

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@DeJennsitized @pacejunkie punk  I don't have iTunes anymore, so I don't know if they've changed anything, but on mine, it has SOTC (the actual song) as track 1, 21 Guns track 16, and American Eulogy track 17, so no room for the altered SOTC in between.

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8 minutes ago, Montclare said:

@DeJennsitized @pacejunkie punk  I don't have iTunes anymore, so I don't know if they've changed anything, but on mine, it has SOTC (the actual song) as track 1, 21 Guns track 16, and American Eulogy track 17, so no room for the altered SOTC in between.

Just listen to American Eulogy on Spotify or even just on YouTube and you'll hear the Song of the Century part of American Eulogy. On iTunes, the timer for American Eulogy appears to be the same as it is on Spotify so idk why you wouldn't hear it on iTunes

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21 minutes ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

Just listen to American Eulogy on Spotify or even just on YouTube and you'll hear the Song of the Century part of American Eulogy. On iTunes, the timer for American Eulogy appears to be the same as it is on Spotify so idk why you wouldn't hear it on iTunes

I bought it years ago, so they might have changed it. Mine only shows 3:56 for AE.

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3 minutes ago, Montclare said:

I bought it years ago, so they might have changed it. Mine only shows 3:56 for AE.

That's weird 🤔

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1 hour ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Twice the money if you think about it. I wonder if BOBD/Holiday and Novacaine/She’s A Rebel are combined on iTunes like they are on Spotify. It would be stupid since you get two songs for the price of one and they’re not maximizing their sales. Even on a streaming service it means fewer streams (unless it goes by total minutes but I think it’s tracks). That’s why newer pop/hip hop, etc albums aware of how the business works are releasing albums with more and shorter tracks. Combined tracks and 9 minute songs really work against you financially in an era of streaming. 

Depends on which album version you want on iTunes. The regular album has each song listed as its own (BOBD/Holiday, Novacain/Rebel, Extraordinary/Letterbomb). 

The deluxe version has them combined. (Screenshots included from US iTunes Store)

regular album listing:

tumblr_pogu7iwwIx1s4fm5g_1280.png

Deluxe album listing:

tumblr_pogu7i0A6I1s4fm5g_1280.png

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Huh, that's weird. I wonder why they have a deluxe version and a regular version? 

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15 minutes ago, maryjanewhatsername said:

Huh, that's weird. I wonder why they have a deluxe version and a regular version? 

The Deluxe version if you buy the whole album had iTunes exclusive bonus tracks 

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I don't think that American Eulogy is the same kind of song than JOS, Homecoming, DRB or Forever now. St. Jimmy also have two marked different parts and isn't considered as a multi-part song. The american eulogy both parts have the same melody, and at the end both lyrics (Billie and Mike parts) are singed togheter. I think that if American Eulogy is considered as a multi-mart song, also St Jimmy or  Christie Road should be... Neither Brutal love is that kind of song.

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39 minutes ago, 17Gonzalo said:

I don't think that American Eulogy is the same kind of song than JOS, Homecoming, DRB or Forever now. St. Jimmy also have two marked different parts and isn't considered as a multi-part song. The american eulogy both parts have the same melody, and at the end both lyrics (Billie and Mike parts) are singed togheter. I think that if American Eulogy is considered as a multi-mart song, also St Jimmy or  Christie Road should be... Neither Brutal love is that kind of song.

Nobody's saying AE is the same as those tracks but it is clearly a mult-part song because
1) Billie named each of the song parts (Mass Hysteria/Modern World) just like he named the different parts in JOS, Homecoming and Forever Now. So there's gonna be comparisons made
2) The song format is different from normal songs:
- Rather than a normal Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, Chorus format, AE consists of: Intro, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 2, Verse, Chorus 2, Verse, Chorus 2, Outro

I'm not saying Brutal Love is the same kind of song either, just noting similar formulas between Tré and AI, 21CB and RevRad.

St. Jimmy I think it's kind of stretching to call it a multi-part song because after the 2nd chorus, it just goes into an outro which sounds a bit different from the rest of the song. Same with Christie Road, the song is almost entirely the same up until the end when it switches things up a bit. Besides those are both too short to be considered "long" multi-part songs.

I don't think just changing things up a little bit at the end of a 3 minute song makes a song a multi-part song

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On 3/17/2019 at 9:56 PM, Christian's Inferno! said:

Nobody's saying AE is the same as those tracks but it is clearly a mult-part song because
1) Billie named each of the song parts (Mass Hysteria/Modern World) just like he named the different parts in JOS, Homecoming and Forever Now. So there's gonna be comparisons made
2) The song format is different from normal songs:
- Rather than a normal Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, Chorus format, AE consists of: Intro, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 1, Verse, Chorus 2, Verse, Chorus 2, Verse, Chorus 2, Outro

 

Plus there's another definite different part at the beginning with the Song of the Century reprise. And there's a Billie part and a Mike part that makes it seem all the more split up. All things considered I'd call it a multi part song.

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Green Day is not even close to the first artist to use that format. The Who is famous for it and Billie has clearly been inspired by them. Many of the multi-part songs are very Who-ish. 

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1 hour ago, Adorkable said:

Green Day is not even close to the first artist to use that format. The Who is famous for it and Billie has clearly been inspired by them. Many of the multi-part songs are very Who-ish. 

I don't think anyone's saying they're the first, just that they have a pattern of where they position multi part/long songs on their albums.

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Last of the American Girls / Murder City
BOTW / Still Breathing

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32 minutes ago, Hermione said:

I don't think anyone's saying they're the first, just that they have a pattern of where they position multi part/long songs on their albums.

It was stated that doing this is Green Daying, and that is just wrong. Credit needs to be given where credit is due 

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