Song of the Week Church on Sunday

[alyrebe04]

This is one of my favorite songs!! I met the band when this album came out and when I bought it and listened to this song I fell in love with it... It's amazing how the simple lines of Church on Sunday makes me cry cause you can feel that BJ is terribly sad and he's begging for forgiveness... It's just beautiful!!! I love this song!!!!

[luvgirlcl]

Great choice. Although it's not on my top 5, I like it. What I think I like best about it, besides the positive message of looking forward ("today is the first day of the rest of out lives"), is that is full of lines and thoughts that would make for great analysis.

I never really got the role of trust in the whole thing, though. The song says that trust "comes only from such a liar", suggesting it's something that's not real, or that's always lied about, which makes sense considering the whole bloodshot deadbeat verse, and in the early stages of the compromising thing the trust might be kind of gone, yeah, but I would still think that trust is an important part of a relationship... in the song it's kind of completely talked down. Anyone care to shine their light on this? (woah, I need to learn how to make sentences that don't consist of endless strings of dependant clauses ) Or am I just thinking too much now

"Trust is a dirty word that comes only from such a liar", I've always seen it as some sort of implication of how the 'liar' tries to say 'it's not true, I'm not lying', the 'liar' trying to ignore or pretend he/she hasn't lied, so he/she tried to convince the other part of how he/she can be trusted because there's nothing wrong. So 'trust' ends up being a bit of a word play, at the end 'trust' means the complete opposite because of the actions that this person has done and that he/she hasn't taken responsability for. Then, 'trust' is a dirty word because it doesn't mean what's supposed to mean, and the 'liar' uses it to convince the other part about this, how he/she can be trusted when it's clear that that is no the case. And then, the 'liar' seeing how things really are and realising the mistakes that have been made, makes it clear to it's counterpart that he/she sees this and will try to fix it and not make the same mistakes in the future.

I don't know if you guys understand what I'm saying, I have a tendency to ramble on and on about things

[justcause]

A lot of talk about the lyrics, not so much about the melody.

Personally I love that its a good, solid punk melody, nice and fast with simple guitar. And the drum intro is great, bit like Burnout

The intro reminds me of Life During Wartime. I love the sound - it's tight and clean, and yeah, you've got this punk thrust in the verses that morphs into a Fifties romance vibe in the chorus. In that, it resonates for me with the sped-up doo-wop of Mother Mary - the same sense of being in the midst of or coming out of an emotional battlefield and reaching for the sweetness of the original romance, the same sense that everything will be alright 'as long as we will stick together'. 'If I promise to go to church on sunday, will you go with me on Friday night?' - it's a retro-thing, as the music speaks it, a return to when things were simpler, a return to courtship. You can practically see the white picket fence and a stitched sampler that says 'today is the first day of the rest of our lives' being hung over the fireplace. The saying's usually 'tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life', but this song says 'tomorrow is too late', let's do this now, let's not waste another minute.

'Bloodshot, deadbeat' - raw words from a raw, bruisey place, the drop-down of the bridge that speaks an actual bridge, from an all-out fight to ceasefire to negotiation to settlement. The word that leaps out to me - because of how it's placed - is 'compromise'. Like, who would vow to die for a compromise? A compromise is something you accept, the real fire is in 'I'll die for you' - and these are your terms. There's a sting in the tail of it, like with most of the lines in this song.

[Zero.]

This song is a great driving song... but this song also shows that Billie can incorporate major events (good or bad) in his life and the other people around him into his lyrics so well. It's kinda like a seeing these events through his eyes and I know most of his songs are like this... but to me this one just seems to show that a lot especially about his private life...

[in_your_face]

i haven't heard this song for a long time.

[Agija]

Great choice, J'net.

Church on Sunday is one of my favourite Green Day songs ever. The best one off Warning, in my opinion.

The lyrics are amazing, the song is full of epic lines. I think it's one of the songs I've quoted the most. My favourite line is, ""Trust" is a dirty word that comes only from such a liar". Just because it's so true.

[Mar]

J'Net, I definitely thought it said "fiance LEONARD Cohen" and I was rather confused.

Love this song, it's got a great melody, as others mentioned. And as Zero said, it's a great song to listen to while driving!

[ANJI]

Great song from such a great album! I love the lyrics, the song is quite catchy and love the opening line

[aussiechocolate]

Love the song.

[Psycho Britney]

I love this song! I would love it if GD played this one live a lot. The lyrics are very personal, but general so everyone can relate to them. So many ways to interpret the lyrics aswell.

[Bastard of 1967]

I've been saving this one up for awhile -- thank you J'net for picking "Church" as SOTW!

This is one of my favorites from "Warning" and is easily my wife's favorite Green Day song overall. The lyrics are so open and honest, so "let's cut out all the bullshit, this is the way it is and what we've agreed to do", so brutally introspective. As Angeline said earlier in this thread, they sting, but not because there is any sarcasm here -- indeed there's a notable absence of it. This song is all about rebuilding a shattered trust (while weaving in an absolutely KILLER bass line, but I digress). It is a confession of sin, an acknowledgement of the pain that sin has caused others, a promise to change, a plea for forgiveness, and maybe even (via the "church on Sunday" metaphor) an appeal to some greater power.....in effect, a complete 12-step redemption program wrapped up into 6 short verses. Perhaps that's why it's appropriate to set these lyrics to an optimistic, hopeful, up-tempo rhythm and poppy melody, in contrast to how sarcastic the same musical style makes the band's darker songs feel. The question that my wife and I started kicking back and forth last year was: what must have happened, presumably between Billie and Adie, that led him to write this, to bare his soul like this to her, to beg and plead with her to stay with him?

Explore the lyrics and you'll find a few hints.

One thing important to note is this is a very forward-looking, future-tense song. It describes a process rather than an immediate solution. "Today is the first day of the rest of our lives"; "if I promise to go to church on Sunday, will you go with me on Friday night?"; "But 'respect' is something I will earn". It's asking Adie to do something now -- "please, stay, have faith, and you will eventually learn to trust me again" -- in return for Billie's promise to change his behavior going forward.

Yet it also imposes an important condition: I'm not getting any younger as long as you don't get any older. "I'm not getting any younger" is Billie in effect saying he won't rebel, pout, and shut down emotionally like a petulant child would in response to an honest challenge to his behavior, so long as Adie doesn't "get any older" -- that is, put herself in a role akin to an authoritarian, discipline-driven parent. This marks an important end to the battle that distracts from the solution to the problem, and instead replaces it with a relationship of true, adult, equals who will now attempt to solve that problem working together instead of driving each other apart.

The lyric that suggests the root cause of the conflict is "bloodshot deadbeat and lack of sleep." Here, Billie hints that the drug and alcohol abuse problems that he experienced at one of the lowest points of his career were taking a considerable toll on his marriage and his family. The deadbeat -- the one who owes a great debt yet has no ability to pay -- is at the same time the dead walking his daily "beat" -- going through the daily routine at best semiconsciously, by rote, barely awake and barely alive, hung over with bloodshot eyes and unable to sleep due to his acknowledged (and thankfully, long since past) use of methamphetamines. This would have left Adie abandoned and alone, and also responsible for caring for (depending on the timeframe when the song was written) one if not both of their kids without being able to rely on her husband for much of anything. Being married to (or in any intimate relationship with) someone who has a mental health issue or an addiction or substance abuse problem is a living hell -- and Billie describes the consequences in the next verses: "Making your mascara bleed/Tears down your face/Leaving traces of my mistakes". He thereby acknowledges that, in Adie's tears, he has finally seen and become aware of the immense pain his behavior was causing.

So when Billie sings in the chorus that "If you live with me, I'll die for you", he undertakes what for him was one of the greatest challenges of his life: to confront his inner pain, and his tendency to mask it behind substance abuse, in order to ultimately purge -- that is, kill off -- this behavior from his psyche.... and in that sense "I'll die for you" is a blatantly and brutally accurate description of the soul-searching process he has agreed to begin. Stated another way (and looking ahead to the band's next album, American Idiot), Billie has agreed to confront and expunge his own inner St. Jimmy as the price he has to pay to save his marriage, his family and himself.

A lot of talk about the lyrics, not so much about the melody.

Personally I love that its a good, solid punk melody, nice and fast with simple guitar. And the drum intro is great, bit like Burnout

One thing that's striking and distinctive about the song is the way Billie's acoustic lead guitar plays against Mike's electric bass. It gives the song an almost folksy, campfire-ish feel on the one hand, yet with that scorpion-sting of the bass right behind to pull you back into the reality of what Billie is singing about. Can't say enough about how effective the cross-play between these two guitar styles is.

[November's Storms]

I rarely bother with reading long posts, but I am so glad I took the time for this one. A song I loved has now been heightened to new levels of respect and awe, thank you so much for the insight!

[jos_whatsername]

I've been saving this one up for awhile -- thank you J'net for picking "Church" as SOTW!

wow. seriously .. you analyzed that song soo well. +1

yeah .. i'm incredibly sad only of you isn't song of the week but i'm sure j'net had her reasons and only of you

can still be picked next week.

soo .. church on sunday! this was one of the first earlier green day songs i ever heard, and i really liked it

from the firsten time i listened to it.

"If you live with me, I'll die for you

And this compromise" these are so amazing lyrics !

I have to admit i don't really get the deep structure of the song, because i once read somewhere that this song

would describe a very big fight between adie and billie and i don't really get what that's supposed to say.

i just guess because this isn't one of my top 10 green day songs, i don't listen to it with enough.. heart. you know?

yeah, i like this song a lot, but i have never thought about the deep meaning.

the only thing i know is that i love these lyrics i posted up there, and the very first ones:

"today is the first day of the rest of our lives" wow. this actually has a personal meaning to me.

for me, it says that you shall always live for the moment. live as if it was your last day. because you don't know

how long "the rest of your life" is. and it also means, that you shall change yourself (in a positive way obviously) as long

as you're able to do so. for me, those lines say "this is the first day of the end, and you can't change anything now,

you're supposed to stay like this till the end."

also, i love the great rythm and the song and the very catchy melody.

i think the song sounds very easy-going. somehow happy, but in a convincing way, if that makes sense:

because the main thing the chorus says is "if i promise i'll go to church with you, then you'll go out with me." .

phew. i have no idea if this weird post made any sense.

[†...HAUSHINKA...†]

I love it! I'd listening to it tons of times without getting tired! SO POETIC

[greendaytone]

Superb. Great insight.

I think with what has transpired since, this compromise has been very successful

[Daughter.of.Rage.and.Love]

I've been saving this one up for awhile -- thank you J'net for picking "Church" as SOTW!

(....)

How about twenty posreps.

Really though, great post. Definitely opened some doors to aspects of the song I hadn't quite noticed or understood yet.

[greendaytone]

Superb. Great insight Bastard of 1967.

I think with what has transpired since in Billie Joe's relationship with Adrienne, this compromise has been very successful so far

[Hermione]

Absolutely love the honesty of this song

I ADORE that part! I wait for it every time I listen to this song, and it always makes me happy!

I love it too! And once, Lydia's friend heard it and said "is your CD player broken or something?"

[November's Storms]

I love it too! And once, Lydia's friend heard it and said "is your CD player broken or something?"

I did think it was an error on my disc or something like that

[Boston]

I think everyone who bought Warning on CD has a mini heart-attack during that part when listening to it for the first time because they thought their brand new disc was already scratched.

[1039SmoothGreenDayFan]

warning was and still is my fav album

and this song had been my all time favourite but than i discovered the grouch

so its my 2nd fav song of all time

[Juliette]

Ahh this song is so sweet Really describes the compromises you have to make in order for a relationship to work.

I'm gonna be boring and say the same as most people that my favourite line is

Making your mascara bleed

Tears down your face

Leaving traces of my mistakes

And yeah the thing with Static Age, I really thought more people knew that

[Radioactive1]

I don't think I could ever tire of this song

[†...HAUSHINKA...†]

Superb. Great insight Bastard of 1967.

[Stormy Haze]

If I could give your post more than one positive rep point I would, without a doubt.

Absolutely love the honesty of this song

Me too

I think everyone who bought Warning on CD has a mini heart-attack during that part when listening to it for the first time because they thought their brand new disc was already scratched.

I had several mini heart-attacks when I put my Green Day albums in my laptop They sounded like if they were scratched. Brutally scratched. But it's not of the albums, because they work fine in my other computer, CD player, etc...