Greenday - American Idiot
Don't want to be an American idiot. Don't want a nation under the new mania And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind fuck America. Well Well Well what have we here? It appears as if Billy-Joe...
Don't want to be an American idiot. Don't want a nation under the new mania And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind fuck America.
Well Well Well what have we here? It appears as if Billy-Joe Armstrong and co is attempting to walk a political line here. What is he doing? Oh he’s just slagging off America, claiming they are idiots and hysterical. Unfortunately this bold (I use this term cautiously) statement seems a little bit too late coming; lets be fair, insulting America has become all too fashionable. In a way this whole attempt to seem intelligent by representing a political agenda seems to be as cynical as the America bashing itself. By which I basically mean: fans of Greenday can then follow this theme and claim they own a political opinion when really it is just leased from Greenday. A political opinion shouldn’t be something fashionable at the end of the day as it undermines any real intelligence in choice.
Anyway political rant aside Billy-Joe talks about how he doesn’t want to be an American idiot. Well he’s an American already which is something of a bad start although how do you prove if he’s an idiot or not? It’s quite a subjective measure really. I think the whole idea of a band like Greenday singing a political song in itself is rather idiotic so I guess Billy-Joe is just going to have to get used to the fact he has become exactly what he hates. I mean look at him he’s just throwing in the word fuck there just to make it seem as if he’s a bit of an anarchist.
Welcome to a new kind of tension. All across the alien nation. Where everything isn't meant to be okay. Television dreams of tomorrow. We're not the ones who're meant to follow. For that's enough to argue.
Oh Billy-Joe! He’s such an anguished poet isn’t he. Although, the teenage angst lacks the same pazazz, as it is coming from a punk-rocker who’s approaching his 40s. I love the way that Greenday are attacking people for blindly following what people on TV say as I would expect that Greenday fans followed their political discourse just as blindly as those who watch the news. Still it’s funny that they pretend that they aren’t being hypocrites. (apologies for the elongated rant but this song doesn’t really lend itself towards any other mockery)
Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along to the age of paranoia.
Another rather reactionary verse from the lads and this time they decide to offend the entire Deep South by referring to America as a faggot. I don’t see how a nation, composed of about 300 million people can be referred to as a faggot, as it doesn’t really make sense. Are they trying to pretend America is a person?
Nonetheless Billy-Joe tries to draw a line between himself and the Rednecks. Although his ignorance is all to clear to see when he implies heavily that propaganda is some kind of dance. Not only that, he also asks the propaganda dancers to sing along to the age of paranoia, which could be rather difficult considering I don’t think such a song actually exists or at the very least is so obscure no one knows the words for it.
Don't want to be an American idiot. One nation controlled by the media. Information age of hysteria. It's calling out to idiot America.
I think Billy-Joe is forgetting an important thing by blaming the media for controlling the nation, and that is that he makes up part of it. But I suppose that it’s ok to try and influence people’s opinions using the media if it’s the “right” message. So remember kids don’t believe anything the media says unless it’s someone who’s cool saying it or the Greenday model of propaganda as I like to call it.
Either this entry was before the 2009 edition or comments just aren't active, sorry. If you want to get in touch please contact us!
