Question about Gloria..

[xluckyscrubs13x]

Its nice to see the whole pathos and love...with drama ..I am so glad they are using some of these songs in the musical coming up but I would love to see 21 CBD

:off: As you are going, TELL THEM TO BRING THE FREAKING MUSICAL TO AUSTRALIA!! I want to see that show so freaking badly.

[.Militza.]

I thought it was "autumn's wind"?

It seems to me like it's saying, it's getting towards the end of the year and it's getting colder, or more metaphorically everybody's losing hope, but she's still fighting on. She's fighting the cold and the hopelessness along with fighting for her cause. (Especially with the later line about "don't look back on last November when your banners were burning down," don't think about the times when everyone was hopeless.)

But that's just my take on it.

Yeah, it is wind, I was typing wast, and didn't think.

But what does it mean, smashed her knuckles?

English is not my native language, so i'm kinda having trouble finding the meaning behind these lines.

[Trotsky]

I don't think either Christian or Gloria are religious, I think Gloria is more of a rebel and Christian is more of a nihilist.

[Bastard of 1967]

im really sorry if topics like this have already been made, but i had to ask...

i'm just a little confused about the character Gloria. "She is the saint of all the sinners"...but isn't she supposed

to be religious or something? Does she change through the album?

SOMEONE EXPLAIN EVERYTHING PLZ & THNX!

If you read the story of Noah in Genesis, you'll find Noah being referred to as "righteous in his generation". There's a lot of scholastic debate about whether that's a back-handed compliment...kind of like "all of you are evil/terrible/suck, but here's this one guy who's not as bad as the rest of y'all, so God selected him for this mission." Gloria as "the saint of all the sinners" could be cast in the same mold -- the best apple in a really rotten lot rather than an objective example of saintliness or righteousness.

"She's the saint of all the sinners" basically means that she is their redemption. I think that Gloria is a lot like Jesus in a way. Jesus never hung around good and holy people - he hung out with prostitutes, whores, and thieves. Gloria is the same way. She hangs around Christian and probably a number of other bad influences; she is there to guide and protect them like a mother. Thus, she is a saint.

Sorry if I got a bit religious there, but the whole album can symbolically relate to the bible, whether Green Day intended for this to happen or not (probably not, though).

Billie Joe was raised Catholic and he knows the dogma, the rituals, and the language. I think it's *very* deliberate, and a great example of how much of a lyrical genius he's become.

Yeah, it is wind, I was typing wast, and didn't think.

But what does it mean, smashed her knuckles?

English is not my native language, so i'm kinda having trouble finding the meaning behind these lines.

"Beat the living shit out of..." pretty much captures the point, IMO.

[punkrockerlori]

Which in my opinion leads us to "21 Guns". I feel that it's Christian forgiving her, you know, giving up the fight and laying down his arms. Or maybe it's Gloria asking Christian to forgive her. Then I feel that since they're together again after that song, perhaps stronger than ever before, it leads us to "American Eulogy", where they both lash out about how much they hate hysteria and how they don't want to live in the modern world.

This is how I made sense of it too. I think it was a great way to end the album with those 3 songs. About my 20th listening to it I was like oh well the story is gonna turn out to be a sucky ending but then 21 Guns comes on and it's like awww everythings going to work out between Christian and Gloria

[Bastard of 1967]

then 21 Guns comes on and it's like awww everythings going to work out between Christian and Gloria

There's another good interpretation I've seen posted that takes 21 Guns in the opposite direction -- Christian and Gloria realize that their conflict is hopeless and irreconcilable, they stop fighting, and they split.... after their blinding passion for each other drops out of the equation, they now see and understand their true enemies clearly in American Eulogy. Then they recap their adventures and express their hopes for the future in See The Light. I LOVE how you can take the same storyline and read it so many different ways depending on how you choose to look at it.

[L0205H]

The way I saw it was that Gloria, pre-album, was religious and innocent.

Know Your Enemy opens her eyes to see that everything is fucked up, which leads to...

iViva La Gloria!, where she is introduced for the first time. The beginning is so sweet sounding, like a lullaby, then it turns into a harder sounding melody. It sounds off the rebellion that Gloria leads off, and shows how she has two sides.

Before the Lobotomy is confusing for this storyline that I'm assuming- it shows her soft side again for the slow parts, saying that she just wishes she didn't live here, and wishes her family came from another place and time. It then goes into saying that she gets a lobotomy, possibly to forget all of her innocence of before...? This is where I have a feeling that the lobotomy could be a metaphor or something... I can't decipher this song to fit my interpretation.

Christian's Inferno, obviously about Christian, just shows that Christian's mad. And he's ready to show everyone that's he's mad and how he'll continue the revolution against everything they're angry about. Grrrr. Possibly there's more to this song, but that's all I've got for now.

Last Night On Earth is a love letter from Christian to Gloria, telling her all the lovey-dovey stuff before it's too late. He knows that he may get into trouble, or even die because of what he'll be doing, but he still loves her no matter what. <3

East Jesus Nowhere shows that the first thing Christian goes after is the church due to all the madness going on in the world and that they're not going after anything to help anyone out. (For world issues, Darfur. For U.S. problems, the economy and then there's gay marriage being legalized). He's mocking the church, and shows that he's not going to suck up to anyone, even for a higher authority. It's like a warning: "Don't test me, second guess me..."

Peacemaker is the action of Christian going out and fighting. He's says that the "infidels are gonna pay" and that he's "gonna take it back to the place where it all began," meaning that he's going to fight until everything's back to normal. "Death to the girl at the end of the serenade" makes a reference to Gloria, how this war is going to be hard for her, but it changes to "death to the ones", which makes it more of a battle fought by many instead of him and Gloria.

In between Peacemaker and Murder City is more of the battle/protests/demonstrations

Last of the American Girls shows that Christian is just so into Gloria because she's nothing that he's ever seen and she's just that damn amazing of a fighter.

Murder City is in Gloria's point of view, saying that she finally hit a point in the rallies that she can't get over and feels "so useless" when it comes to killing. She feels weakened, and this means that...

iViva La Gloria! (Little Girl)- Christian isn't happy with it. He feels like she's losing everything she gained within the battles that they've been fighting together, and he's letting her know he's angry. He gets so angry that she's something that he never knew, and calls her "a liar" and a "junkie preaching to the choir".

Restless Heart Syndrome- Gloria's lost. She doesn't know what to do, and after hearing what Christian had to say about her, she's lost without him. She sees that she isn't the rebel that she was before, but she can't completely abandon what she truly is passionate about. She doesn't know who she is now, but then states, "know your enemy" which is ironic because that's the statement that made her feel like she had to rebel, and apparently, rebelling seems to be the enemy for Gloria at this stage.

("I feel like I've been crucified to be satisfied" can be the ONE line that describes Gloria the best in 21CB- she's tried so hard to do what she's passionate about, but she possibly tried too hard, and now the church even rejects her. Now she doesn't know what makes her happy.)

Horseshoes and Handgrenades is showing that Christian is still working in the rebellion, and when Gloria goes back to him, he lashes out again, saying that he's serious about it and not just kidding. He's just going at it because this is his number one priority now. At the end when he spells out G-L-O-R-I-A, which is his own statement saying that he wants Gloria back for what they've had before and how he hasn't lost complete hope in her.

...I think I went a little overboard on her character now, didn't I? Heh.

[JohnnyNapalm]

the story for 21cb seems a lot harder to follow than the story for american idiot

hell yes, agreed there. whats the meaning of see the light? it just sounds like it means either christian or gloria has been redeemed or something?

[Hermione]

I don't think this album has a linear storyline like AI did. The songs are about the characters experiences, but there's no storyline as such, not one you could follow from start to finish anyway.

I don't think either Christian or Gloria are religious, I think Gloria is more of a rebel and Christian is more of a nihilist.

I agree. I think although religion comes up as a subject on the album, most of the references to religion are just metaphors for other things.

When it comes to the characters I think that's even more true. Religion itself or whether the characters are religious doesn't come into it - he's just using those religious words and imagery as a way of describing the characters and their situation.

And you found the perfect words to describe Gloria and Christian! That's such a great way to put it, the rebel and the nihilist

[.Militza.]

hell yes, agreed there. whats the meaning of see the light? it just sounds like it means either christian or gloria has been redeemed or something?

IMO, after they get together in 21guns ( I wrote about that couple posts above), they're faced wit America in post Bush era.

And at the end of a Mass Hysteria when BJ says " Vigilantes are warning ya, calling Christina and Gloria", we can assume that they're still together, and that they're ready to fight, but still they do need some bravery to do it.

So I believe that in the See the light, Gloria is basically asking herself or Christian to help her to move on, to keep fighting, for the right cause. Deep inside she maybe knows what is worth the fight, but she needs someone beside her to remind her of that.

[Bastard of 1967]

IMO, after they get together in 21guns ( I wrote about that couple posts above), they're faced wit America in post Bush era.

And at the end of a Mass Hysteria when BJ says " Vigilantes are warning ya, calling Christina and Gloria", we can assume that they're still together, and that they're ready to fight, but still they do need some bravery to do it.

So I believe that in the See the light, Gloria is basically asking herself or Christian to help her to move on, to keep fighting, for the right cause. Deep inside she maybe knows what is worth the fight, but she needs someone beside her to remind her of that.

I'm more inclined to believe that they *do* indeed stay together after 21 Guns -- if you take a look at the limited-edition version of the album artwork, they're both together in the illustration for "See The Light", looking out toward the distance while they're warming their hands over a fire.

[.Militza.]

That's what I said. They do stay together.

[Tamy15]

Woah, your visions of the album and Gloria's character are amazing...

They really help me to got the parts of the album i didnt understand...

Thanks

[.Militza.]

Who's?