Billie Joe Armstrong My Life in 10 Songs
Holiday: That was a time when our country was moving into a war for fictitious reasons.
409 in Your Coffeemaker: I’d just dropped out of high school, and I was feeling really lost — like a daydreamer who was being left behind.
Brain Stew: This song is such a dark horse. I had just gotten some recording equipment, and I came up with the riff when I was experimenting with it for the first time: “Oh, this is cool.
Jesus of Suburbia: I loved “A Quick One” by the Who, and I decided I’d love to write a song that felt like a mini-opera.
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life): I wrote this back when I was writing for Dookie.
Longview: I really loved the song by the Pretenders called “Message of Love,” and wanted to write a song like that, but we needed a bass line.
Minority: After “Time of Your Life,” I started getting into playing more acoustic guitar, and I really wanted to have more for Warning.
2000 Light Years Away: The first tour that Green Day ever went on, I met my wife, Adrienne, at a house party in Minneapolis.
Welcome to Paradise: I had moved out of my house in the suburbs to West Oakland, into a warehouse that was rat-infested and in a really fucked-up neighborhood.
She: I had a girlfriend named Amanda, this Cal student. I learned a lot about feminism through her.