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Christian's Inferno


pasalaska

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It's an outpouring of violent rage before the calm and beauty of Last Night On Earth.

That. Aska alluded to the Dante-esque nature of the song already -- one must descend through hell before one can ascend to heaven -- and that's exactly where Inferno takes you. The internal clash in Inferno between the demonic spoken lyrics and the furious yet melodic chorus has echoes in the transition from that fury into the "happy place" that is LNOE. Good post! :good:

Something else I noticed -- the lead guitar in the bridge. Two simple chords that sound like a police or ambulance siren. I think it's Billie's crack at "They're coming to take me away hahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!"

Frankly, it's forgettable for me musically and lyrically. It's not a bad song, but it's definitely one of the weaker ones on 21CB. To be perfectly honest, that's not an album packed with classics either.

The music almost doesn't seem to work quite right, with the drum-heavy beat giving way to the more typical arena rock guitar chorus. I suspect that's what Billie Joe was going for, though, and he wanted that disjointed, jarring transition. The lyrics, for me, are not up to par with Billie Joe's best work (and the wordplay that he excels with is limited here), and most of what I think of is the over-repeated chorus.

As music in general goes, it's not bad, but it's definitely not top-notch stuff. As Green Day goes, it's a pretty weak effort overall. I commented once that I would have a hard time naming a song I don't like on AI, but could do so for several on 21CB without hesitation. This is definitely one of them.

I "liked" that -- not because I agree with you but because of the way you lay out your opinions. Well done.

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hmm... For me the song get's real meaning when i'm about to explode or when life sucks so much that i just want to smash something. It's like every Green Day song has it's moments.

I like to scream along the song when i'm burning in my anger but when i'm "normal" it's just a catchy record.

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hmm... For me the song get's real meaning when i'm about to explode or when life sucks so much that i just want to smash something.

"Platypus" is my go-to song for those moments. Amazing tho how Green Day has a song that works for nearly every mood you can find yourself in.

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I love this song! Dark and creepy! I'll try to write something when I get out of school :/

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I love this song. It's a small part of the whole picture of 21CB. I don't love it for the way it makes me feel however, like so many other Green Day songs do; Christian's Inferno is anxious and urgent and uneasy, and those are not 'good' feelings. It pulls me in right from the beginning tho, and it makes me want to listen, like I have to.

I love the effect on Billie's voice and how it changes drastically between the verses and the chorus - the fact that these two parts are so different used to bother me, but it grew on me after I 'got it.' It's like two sides of a personality singing in one song. The angry, distorted, destructive person singing during the verses and the clear-minded and optimistic person singing the chorus. Two sides of Billie Joe? Christian and Gloria? I dunno - but I feel as if it's two people singing. One distressed and the other telling a story.

I think there's a lot of cool word-play going on here, too - maybe not too long and wordy, but short and clever and thought provoking. There's a couple of things with the lyrics that make me think 'black or white' and 'good or bad,' just like with the total opposite sounds of the verses/chorus. Two examples would be: 1. diabolic and gracing (evil/ugly and good/beauty) and 2. atom bomb and chosen one (destruction and salvation.)

My one negative is that it doesn't have a third verse.

And I don't think anyone mentioned that the lyrics say, 'I am the chosen one' but he sings, 'I am your chosen one.' I wonder if that was intentional or a slip-up?

[Edit] PS: Best quality vid of the Fox Theater performance I've found so far --

[/Edit]

That's a great performance! Thanks for sharing it. :) That would be another negative for me, that they didn't play this live during the tour. I would absolutely love to see and experience the absolute insanity of the crowd (and the band) during this song.

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There's a couple of things with the lyrics that make me think 'black or white' and 'good or bad,' just like with the total opposite sounds of the verses/chorus. Two examples would be: 1. diabolic and gracing (evil/ugly and good/beauty) and 2. atom bomb and chosen one (destruction and salvation.)

Nice catch!! We've discussed here and in other 21CB-related SOTW threads how the album keeps coming back to the question of "how do I approach this crazy fucked-up world? Try to work within the system to build it up, or tear it all the hell down and start over"? Inferno's musical and lyrical contrasts do such perfect justice to that. As I've said already -- Inferno isn't a favorite song of mine in the exact same way that "Take Back" isn't, but there's a reason why it needs to be on 21CB and to that extent, I think it's it's another piece of artistic brilliance.

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I love the effect on Billie's voice and how it changes drastically between the verses and the chorus - the fact that these two parts are so different used to bother me, but it grew on me after I 'got it.' It's like two sides of a personality singing in one song. The angry, distorted, destructive person singing during the verses and the clear-minded and optimistic person singing the chorus. Two sides of Billie Joe? Christian and Gloria? I dunno - but I feel as if it's two people singing. One distressed and the other

telling a story.

I don't think the chorus person is clear-minded and optimistic at all. The verses are all why the world is a mess and Christian being mighty pissed off about it and he's angry, and the chorus is Christian being almost like blinded by this wanting to burn it all down, and he feels like it's doing the right thing, but it's still an inferno. I think that's also where the atom bomb, chosen one thing comes in. He's the atom bomb, gonna destroy it all, which makes him the (our) chosen one because that's what needs to be done.

I also noticed a build up in the verses, or in the whole song. The first verse is mainly what's wrong with the world and he's angry (there's fire in my veins), then the first chorus comes in and (this is the kind of speculation that's not based on anything and that forms in my head while I type it out, so, excuse me that it's far-fetched and may not make sense) he's got this idea of his inferno. Then the second verse shows how he's almost thriving off of it (this diabolic state is gracing my existence, and the "woah"s in the chorus) and feels like he needs to destroy it all, because it needs to be done (atom bomb, chosen one) and it'll save ... something. Return from man to ape, start over. Another chorus, solo with the maniacal laughter, and the last chorus.

And I don't think anyone mentioned that the lyrics say, 'I am the chosen one' but he sings, 'I am your chosen one.' I wonder if that was intentional or a slip-up?

I think it's intentional... I hope it's intentional, at least. I love how it's 'your' instead of 'the'. Can't quite find the right words to explain why, though. He's not the chosen one, he is the chosen one for our world. The use of the world 'your' also implies, to me at least, that he basically dubbed himself the chosen one. "I am your chosen one", you need a chosen one but don't know it.

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That. Aska alluded to the Dante-esque nature of the song already -- one must descend through hell before one can ascend to heaven -- and that's exactly where Inferno takes you. The internal clash in Inferno between the demonic spoken lyrics and the furious yet melodic chorus has echoes in the transition from that fury into the "happy place" that is LNOE. Good post! :good:

Something else I noticed -- the lead guitar in the bridge. Two simple chords that sound like a police or ambulance siren. I think it's Billie's crack at "They're coming to take me away hahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!"

Wow it really does! I'd never noticed before but it seems obvious now you've pointed it out. I like it.

And I must say I've really enjoyed reading everything you've said about this song. Although that always applies!

That's a great performance! Thanks for sharing it. :) That would be another negative for me, that they didn't play this live during the tour. I would absolutely love to see and experience the absolute insanity of the crowd (and the band) during this song.

Me too! They could've fitted it in the setlist instead of St Jimmy, there's not many songs that would allow Billie to be such a badass crazy character running round the stage but I think Christian's Inferno could've done the job. But I also think he loves St Jimmy too much to give it up haha. Really glad we at least have that one really brilliant video of it live.

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He's the atom bomb, gonna destroy it all, which makes him the (our) chosen one because that's what needs to be done.

Agree. The more we dig out of this, the more brilliant wordplay we find. The two terms used here ("atom bomb" and "chosen one") are on the one hand conceptual antonyms, but Billie puts them together in the same verse and gets fire and brimstone pouring out of them.

I think Ben needs to give this another read.....

:D

Return from man to ape, start over.

You nailed that. And also this:

you need a chosen one but don't know it.

I bow in your general direction. bow-smiley.gif

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I don't think the chorus person is clear-minded and optimistic at all. The verses are all why the world is a mess and Christian being mighty pissed off about it and he's angry, and the chorus is Christian being almost like blinded by this wanting to burn it all down, and he feels like it's doing the right thing, but it's still an inferno. I think that's also where the atom bomb, chosen one thing comes in. He's the atom bomb, gonna destroy it all, which makes him the (our) chosen one because that's what needs to be done.

I think it's intentional... I hope it's intentional, at least. I love how it's 'your' instead of 'the'. Can't quite find the right words to explain why, though. He's not the chosen one, he is the chosen one for our world. The use of the world 'your' also implies, to me at least, that he basically dubbed himself the chosen one. "I am your chosen one", you need a chosen one but don't know it.

I struggled to find the right words to describe the chorus as being the opposite of the verses - maybe optimistic and clear-minded were the wrong choices. I was trying to stress the theme of good/evil, just couldn't find the right words.

I like how it's 'your,' too, and for what it's worth, I think it's intentional as well. I remember the first time I realized that it was sung differently from the lyrics. I was listening to it in the car with a friend, and I had to ask her if what I heard was correct. It was like a little lightbulb going off in my head - that's my favorite line from that song, for sure! Every time I hear it, I say to myself, "Yes, you are." :lol:

Return from man to ape, start over.

You nailed that.

I was just about to say the same thing. Love that!!

Me too! They could've fitted it in the setlist instead of St Jimmy, there's not many songs that would allow Billie to be such a badass crazy character running round the stage but I think Christian's Inferno could've done the job. But I also think he loves St Jimmy too much to give it up haha. Really glad we at least have that one really brilliant video of it live.

I was thinking about the same substitution, Hermione. There's a similarity in the two songs.I can see him getting into the same 'mode' while singing Inferno that he does for St. Jimmy. But I know he loves to sing St. J, so fat chance he's gonna replace it. I am glad we do have the one video, too - Andres should come and write about how cool it was to see that in person.

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I totally got the St Jimmy vibe from that video (which I now am watching more and more). I would never have Jimmy replaced in the setlist, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to throw a random Inferno in now and again.

See - I'm glad we had this for SotW, cos there's always more to explore!

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I've always really liked this song. Maybe not the chorus so much though :/ In my opinion its the perfect song to put before LNOE and I love the transition between the two:) That live video is kick ass!

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I love this song! Dark and creepy! I'll try to write something when I get out of school :/

haha when i get out of school lol.

*GDC School Ninja* :ninja:

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The term to talk about the difference between the chorus and verses is the "juxtaposition" between them...came to me in a bout of insomnia last night.

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The term to talk about the difference between the chorus and verses is the "juxtaposition" between them...came to me in a bout of insomnia last night.

Yes!! Thank you. That's exactly it. That's how things usually finally come to me, too - I just usually forget them again by the morning, lol.

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Mumbling verses and a simplistic, repetitive chorus.

Well, that's one way of putting it :D

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21CB is the album which got me into Green Day. I listened to it all the time, but when I realized I was listening to Christian's Inferno or East Jesus Nowhere I just wanted to skip them as fast as I could...

I love the effect on Billie's voice and how it changes drastically between the verses and the chorus - the fact that these two parts are so different used to bother me, but it grew on me after I 'got it.' It's like two sides of a personality singing in one song. The angry, distorted, destructive person singing during the verses and the clear-minded and optimistic person singing the chorus. Two sides of Billie Joe? Christian and Gloria? I dunno - but I feel as if it's two people singing. One distressed and the other telling a story.

I love that they had the audacity to put together a chorus and verses that totally clash :lol:. I had to laugh when I first heard it and the chorus came in and took me by surprise, love how blatent the clash is. And the sudden jump between the evil verses and the more 'normal' chorus makes the verses sound even more evil. It descends from that clear catchy singing to a maniacal laugh and sinister music. Fantastic.

I don't like Christian's Inferno because of that clash. I think it all is a newbie thing, the song is too simple.

I divide it into two parts, the chorus and the rest. Then everything fits and I like it separaretely. I think it all is good if you separate them, I don't like it together.

Musically, I think Inferno is the most "pure punk" of all of the tracks on 21CB. The distant, distorted, spoken vocals are reminiscent of what the B-52's Fred Schneider might sound like if he were possessed by a demon. Mike shows you how even the most simple bass lines can sound phenomenal in the right context, and Tre's furious percussion in the chorus and machine gun roll in the bridge drops the exclamation points in all the right places.

I don't consider any 21CB song as "pure punk". Although, CI gives me an impression that makes me thing that Green Day just worked "enough" in it. So, how much simple it is makes CI punk.

About the chorus: It's too simple, but catchy, I don't like it too much, but it's not bad.

About the rest: I like it all, I think it remembers me the anger of Insomniac, like after this parts ends there is going to be some explosive stuff... but then, I remember what's next.

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First of all, yeah for the Italian reference - a licterature reference as well, I should be ashamed for not linking it to Dante's Divine Comedy!

But now, my thoughts...no, I don't think it's an horrible song. It's not one of my favourite, but 21st Century Breakdown wouldn't have been complete without a violent, distorted, rough song like this - a dark note that has something interesting to say.

I like listening to this song, because it's like drowning, drowning in my own feelings, in my own rage, refusal and violence,

and when I come out of it, I'm like born-again. Billie's voice almost suggests me the pleasure for this moment of evil madness, as he wanted to keep falling in that hellish funnel. I've been rejected ( "the rejection letter"), and do you think this is a condemnation? No, it's a blessing for me, "this diabolic state is gracing my existance", and he becomes an ungovernable machine of hate and power.

I like to find a central thread that leads to Give Me Novacaine - Jesus Of Suburbia is sick of his life, of the pain he has to feel, he doesn't want to feel anything anymore, and he indulges in the novacaine's hands. The peace, the void, and then the storm, now it's Christian losing control on his life, on himself, reacting in another, violent way. All the pain, every defeat makes him stronger...

"Like a catastrophic baby, maybe you are the chemical reaction. I am the atom bomb, I am the chosen one", these are the strongest lyrics to me; and now that Aska wrote that, the sound defintely reminds me of a Network's song :woot:

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I really like this song, is not my favorite from 21stCB but is a great song. Good choice for SotW :D

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At first I thought the lyrics were "and then return love to hate". It's got something.

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