05 - Outlaws

[RougeRogue]

7 hours ago, Shahd said:

I always skip this song. Every time I try to listen to it, I just can't. I guess it's too depressing for my taste.

I wish to see why everyone loves it, maybe if they play it live it'll be faster and I'll enjoy it.

Same tbh.

When it's on, it's almost as if...after it's over, I feel like I didn't listen to any of it the whole time. Like it was just noise I wasn't registering.

Idk. Not that I want to fill this thread with hate, cause I could never -truly- hate a GD song. But yeah. I notoriously have little patience for slow GD songs and this one has yet to be given a fair chance with me.

[St. Jonny]

Wish there was more going on during the verses though the lyrics are great! The chorus again had great lyrics but is pretty boring musically compared to everything else on the album. I don't tend to skip any song, therefore, I can see I like it less than anything else on RevRad. And I am pretty sure it is "my spirit's place to roam" like it sais in the booklet, that one sounds right.

[Mykee Mexx]

My second favourite song besides Still Breathing. This gets me every time, it creates such a lovely, sweet, melancholic, almost painful sensation in me... love it...

[St. Jonny]

I think it is great but would have sounded much better with a slow riff over the verse's. The subtle bass line is good but might have been even better if it only were to happen in the first or final verse. Just a thought, I'm sure they got exactly what they were aiming for though. Final line in the song is extremely powerful, love to feel the emotion in the sound of his voice... very moving.

[xLumian]

Still my top two in the album for me - along with Still Breathing. Only complaint is that I wish the verses were louder so that the transition between the verse and chorus isn't so contrasting in loudness. I find myself constantly fiddling with the volume during the song.

[Beerjeezus]

6 hours ago, xLumian said:

Still my top two in the album for me - along with Still Breathing. Only complaint is that I wish the verses were louder so that the transition between the verse and chorus isn't so contrasting in loudness. I find myself constantly fiddling with the volume during the song.

Agreed, however, the verses sound ok to me - they might have made the choruses a bit more subtle. It's annoyingly loud and too contrasting. The rest sounds a little different from most green day songs and I'm always a bit disappointed when the chorus kicks in.

[End Of The World]

On ‎11‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 9:21 AM, Shahd said:

if they play it live it'll be faster and I'll enjoy it.

Yes I'd love it. A thing like that happens when I listen to We Want the Airways, by Ramones. I don't like the studio version at all (130 BPM) but live (160 BPM) is one of my favorites.

Oh, and next January, GD MUST play Outlaws live. I can't conceive a live show without that song.

[Bastard of 1967]

On 10/23/2016 at 4:19 PM, Too Dumb to Die(s) said:

To me this one is sort of a love song to Mike, and the same thing is continued in Bouncin of th Wal .   Mike is the Devil.   Haha, I'm dead!  

 

Sort of?  You understate it - after listening to it, oh, a zillion times by now, I think that's exactly where it's trying to hit.  That "first love, first forgiveness" Billie writes about ain't about a woman.  In context after "Fading in twilight, the dawn of a criminal in bloom", he's writing about the bromance between himself and his best friend of almost 30 years.  "Lost souls, bottle rockets" and all the light-hearted havoc they wreaked...that was who they were.  Outlaws recalls that and what they did together before real adulthood finally swept over them.

[That Dude]

18 hours ago, Bastard of 1967 said:

Sort of?  You understate it - after listening to it, oh, a zillion times by now, I think that's exactly where it's trying to hit.  That "first love, first forgiveness" Billie writes about ain't about a woman.  In context after "Fading in twilight, the dawn of a criminal in bloom", he's writing about the bromance between himself and his best friend of almost 30 years.  "Lost souls, bottle rockets" and all the light-hearted havoc they wreaked...that was who they were.  Outlaws recalls that and what they did together before real adulthood finally swept over them.

Do you also concur that Satan in "Bouncing off the Wall" is Mike?    

[Jack [DF]]

Not sure if someone has already pointed this out, but this song just *begs* for a mashup with Creep by Radiohead.

 

In all seriousness, it's probably one of the band's weakest songs. The first time I listened through it I couldn't stop thinking how much better it could've been if it were given a Rest/Christie Road vibe. As it stands, it sounds less like a Green Day song and more like the last song in the first act of a Broadway musical.

[Bastard of 1967]

On 12/4/2016 at 4:32 PM, Too Dumb to Die(s) said:

Do you also concur that Satan in "Bouncing off the Wall" is Mike?    

Hadn't thought about it that way, but that's plausible!

[End Of The World]

14 minutes ago, crock6000 said:

That's how I took it too but I thought nobody would agree so I kept that one to myself.

I think this song is actually almost a ballad to Mike. It's a power ballad, @End Of The World was chatting with me about speeds of some of the songs and I was surprised at how slow this song  really is at about 85bpm or so, so don't be fooled by the power riffs, this is a ballad (power ballad) which is sort of rare for them. You can count WMUWSE as the same type of ballad but it's wholly different to me.

Outlaws has turned into one of my favorite driving songs. 

"I found a knife by the railroad track, you took a train and you can't go back, Forever Now, Forevrr Now, you'll roam...roam....roam".

I have lately been this line sort of means that Billie was a problem child and without Mike's friendship as a kid saved him. Billie found the knife by the railroad track but Mike came with the train and won't go back. Forever now you'll roam. Of course this is a throw to FN and the idea of something being infinite (at least as finite as life may be) and they'll be on that journey forever (Green Day).

The only problem I have with this interpretation (my own) is why did he not say "Forever now, WE'LL roam."?

Either way, I love this song a ton.

edit: "we were delinquents, freaks of a faded memory". At the beginning of this song I think the "freaks of a faded memory" is pointing to their lost fathers and the effect it had on them.

Can we consider it like Wild One, in your opinion? It looks like they have almost the same BPM.

[Bastard of 1967]

4 hours ago, End Of The World said:

Can we consider it like Wild One, in your opinion? It looks like they have almost the same BPM.

The big difference between Outlaws and Wild One is that Wild One swings at the feels and whiffs, but Outlaws kicks it square in the nuts. 

 

4 hours ago, crock6000 said:

That's how I took it too but I thought nobody would agree so I kept that one to myself.

I think this song is actually almost a ballad to Mike. It's a power ballad, @End Of The World was chatting with me about speeds of some of the songs and I was surprised at how slow this song  really is at about 85bpm or so, so don't be fooled by the power riffs, this is a ballad (power ballad) which is sort of rare for them. You can count WMUWSE as the same type of ballad but it's wholly different to me.

Outlaws has turned into one of my favorite driving songs. 

"I found a knife by the railroad track, you took a train and you can't go back, Forever Now, Forevrr Now, you'll roam...roam....roam".

I have lately been thinking this line sort of means that Billie was a problem child and without Mike's friendship as a kid saved him. Billie found the knife by the railroad track but Mike came with the train and won't go back. Forever now you'll roam. Of course this is a throw to FN and the idea of something being infinite (at least as finite as life may be) and they'll be on that journey forever (Green Day).

The only problem I have with this interpretation (my own) is why did he not say "Forever now, WE'LL roam."?

Either way, I love this song a ton.

edit: "we were delinquents, freaks of a faded memory". At the beginning of this song I think the "freaks of a faded memory" is pointing to their lost fathers and the effect it had on them.

English does a shitty job of distinguishing second-person "you" from third-person "you" now that the archaic "thee"s and "thou"s aren't in use anymore (sidebar: Hebrew does a much better job with this)....so we're left with context to try to sort it out and the lyrics here are vague in that respect, maybe deliberately so, so we can read what we want into them.  imo the knife is a metaphor for what *both* Billie and Mike had been; up to this point the song focuses on what both of them were, what they both did together, so maybe that's a clue.  Lying on the ground, that knife that represents "young them" has been discarded; it serves no purpose anymore; and with maturity it can't return.  I guess I don't see it so much as one saving the other from literally going off the rails (there's that damn train track/Christie Road thing tying in yet again), as it was that they both found and saved each other...and now life goes on.

[Bastard of 1967]

18 hours ago, crock6000 said:

Like I've said I've been all over the place with my interpretation of the hauntingly beautiful ending of this song.

At one point I thought the knife might actually mean musicality and the desire to form Green Day. That's what Billie found and they stated a band and never looked back, in essence saving each other for sure and that falls directly in line with your interpretation, I think. 

I do love how such seemingly not complex lyrics by Billie can be so dug into by the people that understand his very understated but rich in complexity lyrics.

In that same vein (yeah wrong thread so shoot me) how about his wordplay in the first verse of Somewhere Now:

I'm running late to somewhere now
I don't want to be
Where the future and promises
ain't what it used to be

There's at least two different thoughts he's tying together here depending on how you parse/split the phrasing --

"I'm running late to somewhere now [that] I don't want to be" --> "I'm heading out to do XYZ chore dull dull boring blahhhh"

and

"I don't want to be where the future and promises ain't what it used to be" --> "I don't want to live in a world devoid of the hope that I was assured of when I was a kid."

The guy is fucking brilliant, man.

 

[Bastard of 1967]

6 minutes ago, crock6000 said:

Yup. That is EXACTLT how I hear that first phrase but there is even more intangible thought going on here. It's a VERY complex idea to put in a song that "I know I am in a new place, it's scary and boring and I need to know how to cope. "

On the line "I don't want to be where the future and promises ain't what they used to be"

Means a little different to me than what you wrote. I'm looking at this song vicariously through his own rehab and how it reflects my own and there is a feeling at the BEGINNING of it (which of course this is) where you literally feel like "Ok, I've done it, I'm at this place where I'm supposed to be but now what?" and then to the FUTURE line he's saying essentially, IMO "I don't want to be in a life where the future of it is not paralleled to my old life". To say it another way his new future (Forever Now) of this NEW person is a NEW future and he is unsure of it and is "scared" for lack of a better word.

I won't turn this into a super long post but this lyrical phrase couples with some others to push the idea of this thought. 

"the truth is in the message"! Is a line that I feel like writing every time I post an interpretation and boy have I. 

On a personal note, I'm so glad you're around Bastard. Are you in LA for this weekend? If so, id like to make you my guest for the Kroq show.

I get you 100%.  The stuff between the Nows is the "this is what the present/future I have to live in now looks like and it scares the fuck out of me."

I'm not a California guy tho the way Trump's been looking I will never say never to that possibility.  The family and I are in Dallas (my job's here and it's a good place to raise our daughter).  Wish I could take you up on your offer!  If your travels ever bring you this way give a shout, it'll be my privilege to hook you up with some good BBQ!

[Bastard of 1967]

17 minutes ago, crock6000 said:

My family are pescatarians (only eat meat if Seafood) but hell yeah, I'll break that for some good ole country Texas style BBQ. My mouth is watering at the thought!

I'm often in or around Texas.  I have an event that I am planning in Tucson which brings me there (well closer) quite often right now and a lot of times when I'm in Tucson, I'll jump over to Austin or Dallas to say to some old friends.  I'll let you know the next time I do that or maybe we can catch the Texas show together.  The privilege and honor would be all mine brother.  I thought before this season began that I would meet you on this tour finally and I am not a man that doesn't like to reach his ambitions.

The wife and I are in sec. 105 at the AAC for the March 4 show in Dallas (yeah, the 100-level seats are where my 20-something ambition meets my almost 50-something reality!).  Would be great if we can connect up there!

[Green333Day]

I really like this song! As some one has mentioned here before, I like the nostalgia and the line "I found a knife by the railroad track" reminds me of the trakcs at Christie Road

[Hermione]

I saw this song described on Tumblr as a love song Billie wrote for Mike and I can't disagree . It is that in a way, very sweet song of friendship and nostalgia. 

[jengd]

This is one of those songs I can't place; I love Revrad, still listen to it a lot having played almost nothing but for the first five months or so after it was released, but I never remember Outlaws.  When it starts, it just kind of washes over me and then about the 3.10 I think, what song is this and I love it.  Not too fond of the fade out ending but it's something Green Day almost never do so I will let it go.  Totally agree that it's a love song to Mike and Tre. 

[Hermione]

18 minutes ago, jengd said:

This is one of those songs I can't place; I love Revrad, still listen to it a lot having played almost nothing but for the first five months or so after it was released, but I never remember Outlaws.  When it starts, it just kind of washes over me and then about the 3.10 I think, what song is this and I love it.  Not too fond of the fade out ending but it's something Green Day almost never do so I will let it go.  Totally agree that it's a love song to Mike and Tre. 

I wouldn't really count it as a fade out ending. The "forever now we'll roam...roam...roam..." bit kind of echoes out but it's not the same as a normal "fade out" where the song just goes on and gets quieter until you can't hear it, it's an interesting ending I think.

[emmericanidiot]

I love this song, although it was the only one that needed to grow on me for a bit, I didn't hate it to begin with but it was just a bit...I don't know, it felt like a come down from a high. As it's the only ballad-like song on the album (not counting Ordinary World as a ballad) I think I was expecting it placed further down the track list, but actually from reading this thread through it does link really well throughout the whole album and kind of brings you back to a narrative.

4 minutes ago, Hermione said:

I wouldn't really count it as a fade out ending. The "forever now we'll roam...roam...roam..." bit kind of echoes out but it's not the same as a normal "fade out" where the song just goes on and gets quieter until you can't hear it, it's an interesting ending I think.

I think it could be a suggestion of life continuing forever, as in, even if no one in this world can hear you, someone somewhere will.

[jengd]

3 hours ago, Hermione said:

I wouldn't really count it as a fade out ending. The "forever now we'll roam...roam...roam..." bit kind of echoes out but it's not the same as a normal "fade out" where the song just goes on and gets quieter until you can't hear it, it's an interesting ending I think.

@Hermione - You are right, I didn't describe the ending well at all.

[Moriarty]

Just looking on the BMI database for some songwriters and noticed they’ve added Jon Fratelli as a songwriter for this song. Probably due to how similar it is to Lupe Brown by The Fratellis, did anybody notice if it was always like this?

[pacejunkie punk]

6 minutes ago, Moriarty said:

Just looking on the BMI database for some songwriters and noticed they’ve added Jon Fratelli as a songwriter for this song. Probably due to how similar it is to Lupe Brown by The Fratellis, did anybody notice if it was always like this?

I don’t know but I love the Fratellis and that chorus definitely sounds too similar to get away with. Maybe they were told to add a credit. Between this and Still Breathing having a co-credit I think Billie needs to stop ripping off other songs so blatantly. For someone who has written so many catchy original melodies, he doesn’t need to he’s a better writer than that.

[Beerjeezus]

1 hour ago, pacejunkie punk said:

I don’t know but I love the Fratellis and that chorus definitely sounds too similar to get away with. Maybe they were told to add a credit. Between this and Still Breathing having a co-credit I think Billie needs to stop ripping off other songs so blatantly. For someone who has written so many catchy original melodies, he doesn’t need to he’s a better writer than that.

I agree. It's cool that he at least usually gives credit, but it's still a bit meh