Juju Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 nice. great song. it's not exactly one of my faves, but it's up there, definitely. i listen to it every time i need to cheer up. it always makes me happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metanoia Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 oh yes ! this is one great song and i really mean great ! asi first heard it i was soooo blown away by it and i couldnt even imagine how it can be that powerful and bombastic and just sooooo blasting...it was perfect for 2004.......and the lyrics are just incredible !!!! go american idiot you rock ! oh andi looooooooove the video !!! the speed ups etc. make it look so epic !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insomniaticnimrod Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 when i first heard this song, it only played for like 3 sec while showing part of the video..it was in some commerical thingy but when i saw Billie and heard the song, i was like "Who is that???What song is that???" i was hooked Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacob. Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Awesome song, one of the first ones i knew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boston Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 American Idiot just has so much raw power, in both its music and its message. It reached out and grabbed me by the throat, and I haven't been the same since. Its also the perfect album-opener. It sets the tone for the whole record impeccably. Gah, I was about to go to bed, but now I need to listen to it!EDIT: After a listen, I remembered the infamous line, "Well maybe I'm the faggot America,". Its just so ballsy, and very meaningful to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umbjisfhinefum Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 i always feel like i don't like this song...but then i listen to it and i remember how fucking amazing it is. i love how blatantly pissed off he is and how well the music brings it all together...fucking awesome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 This song is raw. This song is bravery. This song is punk. This song is honesty. This song is fucking awesome. I will never forget the first time I heard this song. It was in late August of '04. I was eleven and it was my last few days of the summer holidays before I started 6th class. I remember it was so fucking sunny out, I was outside playing and then I came in for a break. I was drinking diluted orange. Flicking non-stop through the music channels. I never stopped on anything because nothing appealed. I see a flash of green. I hear this amazing, powerful guitar. I watch it. It's almost over but I'm hooked. "Green Day - American Idiot" I swear, my mouth was wide open. I was so close to the tv, I was trying to climb in! I search for the video again. I find it, just starting. I fall in love. Never looked back since. I'm always inspired by the sheer bravery and passion of this song. The message, the music, the lyrics. I agree with the message so much. As an 11 year old it really helped me to understand stuff about my family in America. It made me passionate about social and political issues. It opened up alot of stuff for me. I really found myself and my place. It was okay to be the minority. I wasn't the one who was meant to follow (see what I did there xD ) I just love the impact it's had across the globe. The lyrics are all amazing. "Well maybe I'm the faggot America - I'm not a part of a redneck agenda." I mean, holyfuck. Wow. To this day, no matter the thousands of times I've heard this song these lyrics impact me. and the music....oh my. <3 The video is perfect. It's incredible. This song and album could have finished Green Day. It just so happened to go the other way and I'm so fucking proud of them. Look at them now - their words and music on Broadway, still as relevant as ever and still finding ways to change the world, inspiring people of all walks of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maura99 Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 Best opening riff ever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greendaygal89 Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 i love this song and the video is pretty amazing too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bastard of 1967 Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 In honor of our awesome guys’ Broadway opening, this week’s Song of the Week is American Idiot. Another awesome pick. Where to begin........ The narrator proclaims, in an explosion of anxiety, rage, and even love, that he doesn't want to be just another media and mass-marketing-directed robot -- what he defines to be the "American idiot." He observes how the country he so desperately wants to be proud of again is falling apart around him...engaged in multiple wars, with standards of living falling for everyone, while a gridlocked, impotent political structure led by one of the biggest jerkoffs the world has ever known sits back and shrugs. He's disgusted at the orchestrated "mind fuck" being worked on us all -- the politicians and the media telling us that everything is OK, just keep borrowing and spending and enjoy the latest bling (just as the government keeps borrowing from China and spending money it no longer has to finance a war that can't be justified under international law). "And while you're at it, don't pay any attention to the bodies coming home from the battlefield," they say. "There's no need for any personal sacrifice. So terrorists blew up the World Trade Center? No worries, just do your patriotic duty and go shopping!" In truth, the undercurrent of anxiety we feel is real. It's the real truth, and no matter how much we want to wish it all away it's not going anywhere -- and the younger generation is going to pay a dear, dear price for it. This was the perfect intro to a great album. It frames the environment that Jesus of Suburbia was forced to grow up in, explaining if not justifying why the poor little guy turned out to be as fucked up of a character as he is, and why he decided to run away, invent his St. Jimmy persona, and turn to drug addiction as a way of (not) dealing with it all. It forced the older generations to look at what they were doing to their kids. And in creating this song and the album, Green Day somehow wound up writing our generations' equivalent of The Who's "Tommy". I wonder if the band really knew what they were getting themselves into when they wrote this song -- it was truly a defining moment for them, elevating their maturity and their own standards well beyond the teen-angst and "let's sing about masturbation" days of Dookie and Insomniac that they had now so clearly left behind. American Idiot -- both the song and the album -- was a tremendously bold statement for anyone to make, especially at a time when their contemporaries (the Dixie Chicks come to mind) and liberal politicians were being villified by the right-wing neoconservatives, wingnut radio talk show hosts, and other elements of the media....but it also made another bold statement: "Remember us? We're back, we're pissed, and we're going to tell it like it is." On my way in to work this morning, the iPod coughed up the band's 2005 Milton Keyes performance (the Bullet In A Bible CD)...65,000 fans in the UK screaming "Going out to Idiot America" all at once....sent a chill up my spine, it did. Next week I hope we can talk about "Letterbomb," which drops the other AI bookend into place. P.S. J'net - can't wait to read your recap of the musical! From the looks of the news blurb on GDA it sounds like it was just phenomenal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daughter.of.Rage.and.Love Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 ^that was a really nice almost essay on the song. Thanks! I realized that I used to take the lyrics "The subliminal mind fuck America" as 'the subliminal mind - fuck America' instead of 'the subliminal mindfuck America'. I wonder if 'my version' would make sense too, because in some way it sounds logical to me, but that might be because I thought of it that way for months. What exactly would a subliminal mind be? The media, telling you what to do in a way you don't notice they do? I don't know if I'm making sense here, but the thought just occurred to me and I figured, let's post it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garnet Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 I never get sick of this song, i used to have a massive poster with all the lyrics of the song and a photo of green day in the background on my door until my sister ripped it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bastard of 1967 Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 ^that was a really nice almost essay on the song. Thanks! I realized that I used to take the lyrics "The subliminal mind fuck America" as 'the subliminal mind - fuck America' instead of 'the subliminal mindfuck America'. I wonder if 'my version' would make sense too, because in some way it sounds logical to me, but that might be because I thought of it that way for months. What exactly would a subliminal mind be? The media, telling you what to do in a way you don't notice they do? I don't know if I'm making sense here, but the thought just occurred to me and I figured, let's post it. Thanks! I interpret the lyrics as "subliminal" being a descriptive adjective that qualifies "mind-fuck" -- the "in a way you don't notice". Kindof like the proverbial example of turning the heat up slowly beneath a pot of water with frogs in it. They can jump out whenever they want, but if you ever so slowly turn up the heat they won't notice that the water they're in is starting to boil til its too late. It's so insidious, so subliminal, so "under our radar" that we don't even realize we're being mind-fucked 'til, all of a sudden, we're (for example) embedded so shit-deep in Iraq and Afghanistan that we have no choice but to stick it out, lest the situation become even worse than it already is. I don't think Billie is saying "fuck America" at all.....I think the song is directed instead at each and every one us (more like a big "fuck you all") for being either complacent or complicit in the country's slow destruction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratepalmer Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 Just the most kick-arse song - a good one to jump around and lose your shoes to ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kayfabe Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 I realized that I used to take the lyrics "The subliminal mind fuck America" as 'the subliminal mind - fuck America' instead of 'the subliminal mindfuck America'. Me too. And also, I'm not over this song at all. Duhwanna be an Amer'ckan Idiyat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfterShock Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 This song is mindlessly energetic, but the lyrics make you think...one of the better on the album Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persons Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 i like alot of green day songs more than American Idiot, but it's still a fucking amazing song, good choice . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in_your_face Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 perfect choice! American Idiot is one of the best songs of gd! it deserves its title even though there might be better songs than american idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eeefaa. Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 OMG, how come I'm only seeing this thread now? I know this song would've been most people's introduction to Green Day, but for me it was my introduction to music. When i arrived in Ireland from South Africa in 2004, I'd been a kind of sheltered child. That is, i didnt know the Spice Girls had broken up, and had trouble distinguishing between female artists, mostly to me they were Britney Spears. Any male artists were my Dad's favourites... meaning they were hardly contemporary But that's enough about that. We were back about two weeks and my Dad decided to sit me and my brother down infront of the television to watch the Christmas chart show. I know Busted were number one, and Band Aid was number two, but what sticks out for me was American Idiot at number seven. Blown away isnt the word. I loved their energy, and it was just so catchy, i wanted to just sit and watch it all day. I'd never heard anything like it before but I fell in love with it the minute i heard it. For a few months following that i continued to be musically inept, but Green Day were always my favourite band, despite only knowing one song Over the next few years I managed to get a hold of most of the albums, and as they say the rest is history But despite my changing musical tastes (happens lots) they've always had a kind of special place for me I could listen to the song and watch the video all day, I'd never get bored of it, I'd always notice new things in the video, and laugh at Tre every time. When it came on in the 02 last year I cried the whole way through. I felt I'd burst, I just...!!! I'm sorry, I'm sure loads of people have waaaay more interesting stories than this but i had to get it out when I saw it was song of the week. Tbh, it's more like the song of my life XD Oh, and another thing I dunno why, but the song just doesnt have the same meaning if Billie doesnt sing it I went to see a Green Day tribute band a few weeks ago and i was like, what the hell? Why dont I like it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxRedundantCastaway86xX Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Amazing track. Such a great guitar riff too. A perfect punk song that really makes you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaso.Of.Suburbia Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 such a great song!!!!!!!! SING ALONG EVERYONE: don't wanna be an american idiot (go...)............ xD omg i've just reached 100 comments!!!! that's gr8! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollard_11 Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 OMG, how come I'm only seeing this thread now? I know this song would've been most people's introduction to Green Day, but for me it was my introduction to music. this is exactly the same as me. i had never been a music fan and right at the time all my friends were developing a music taste and i was searching for my own, this song came out. it hit me straight away, AI was then the first album i went out and bought myself. I have not looked back since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comedy & Tragedy Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 I know this song would've been most people's introduction to Green Day, but for me it was my introduction to music. This times a million Hearing Green Day got me into rock music in general. Who knows where I would be without them now?! Green Day convinced me to be different, and be proud of it! Even though at the time, there were many details of their songs that I didn't understand (me have only just turned 9) but each song meant so much to me. Even though after this song came out, everybody I knew liked green day, I knew that they meant something more, and that they would be with me forever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marki. Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 One of the songs that really got me into Green Day (and /good/ music in general) and I'll be thankful for that forever Hearing Green Day got me into rock music in general. Who knows where I would be without them now?! Green Day convinced me to be different, and be proud of it! Even though at the time, there were many details of their songs that I didn't understand (me have only just turned 9) but each song meant so much to me. Even though after this song came out, everybody I knew liked green day, I knew that they meant something more, and that they would be with me forever THIS! Ah yes. My 8th grade anthem. Fucking amazing year that was. I miss being 13. Yes Me and my friends used to listen to this song a 100000 times and make silly videos with broomsticks instead of guitars and stuf like that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idc Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 oh this is soo cool! I'm realizing from time to time, how much American Idiot means to me, since its the very first Green Day Song i ever heard, and which got me into this awesome Band, Music and finally onto this Forum to all of you lovely people Its ALWAYS a good listen and kicks the mood to a extremly high level of excitement. Its just full of energy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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