Billie Joe Armstrong: Out of grief comes song

    Green day, the band that revolutionized punk music, and the lead singer who made it all possible, Billie Joe Armstrong. It's hard nowadays to be in the punk scene and not have heard Green day or one of their songs before. They were an iconic staple in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with them still going strong today. The songs they write are carefully done, each note and each lyric is thought of carefully to give the songs meaning. That the songs have to be perfect before it can go in an album. I have been a Green day fan since middle school, and love a good majority of all their songs, but there is one song I always think of first when I think of Green day. Out of all the albums and all the songs they have written and performed, one song in particular stands out, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. This song stands out to me because it is a very different feel compared to the rest of the songs in American Idiot where they tend to be more fast paced. This song in particular was about the death of Billie Joe’s father when he was 10, and shows how pain can be used as a creative outlet, to help grieve and move on. The title of the song itself was something Billie said to his mother as he just wanted to skip the month of September because it was too painful to remember. Looking at the song more closely you can see how the pain led the creativity of the song to unfold, the repeated pattern of the guitar being the long march of time, that the weight of the notes at the beginning is all you hear but over time it becomes easier as more instrumentals join in. The downward chord progression as a symbol of the sinking feeling he gets around September and how each time it gets to a moment that represents pain or sadness a minor chord is played, most notably the C minor before September is sung.

    This song came back to me when reading about Nick Cave's journey with Ghosteen, an album dedicated to the loss of his son in 2015. When taking a listen to the song Ghosteen Speaks, it gives the same kind of background song of the monotony to time and carrying the weight of burden. The idea of a song dealing with loss and comparing it with the two artists shows this idea that it’s painful, but over time it is possible to get through it. While Nick Cave sees the song as a way to connect with his son’s spirit, Billie Joe sees his song as an output of wishing he didn't remember the pain. But in the end both wrote songs about their pain and loss to help them grieve during such hard times.