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| Billy Joe Armstrong With some Falling Rain (Source: |
Say, hey!
Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like an Armageddon flame (Hey!)
The shame
The ones who died without a name
"Falling rain" refers to the bombs coming down, bringing with them ultimate judgment and destruction, an "Armageddon" from the air. The United States armed forces have endured in the Middle East, fighting wars which cannot be won to "help" people who do not want to be helped. How many of our troops have died "without a name"? How many ethnic groups still die, not just at the hands of American interventionism, but to this day under the oppressive thumbs of their dictators who refused to listen to them
Hear the dogs howling out of key
To a hymn called "Faith and Misery" (Hey!)
And bleed, the company lost the war today
“The Company” refers to Halliburton, or any other war-profiteering machine. "Faith and Misery" is a subtle jab at the religious overtones which justify military conflicts. The Germans in World Wars I and II cried out "Gott mit uns" or "God with us".
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday
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| Green Day Concert (Source, unknown, Wikimedia Commons) |
Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protester has crossed the line (Hey!)
To find, the money's on the other side
I think this indictment belongs to Green Day as much as any corporate lobbyist. The San Francisco punk band spends time raging against the United States, when they should be targeting the people who run the government against the better interests of the Constitution and the people whose rights need to be protected. I also think of the Occupy Movement, which in the name of protest just wanted to get rich like everyone else. I still remember the whiny cries for a "Twenty dollar" minimum wage from the very Occupiers who killed the Downtown LA farmers market, and the "99%" had to pick up the tab.
Can I get another Amen? (Amen!)
There's a flag wrapped around a score of men (Hey!)
A gag, a plastic bag on a monument
I still remember the old lady who camped outside of the White House, a homeless woman who chanted that Bush was a killer. She looked covered in plastic bags. Then there is the eternal gag of death and the plastic bags filled with military dead returning from combat. "A flag wrapped around a score of men" suggests that the legacy of extensive and military engagement forged the United States today, with President Lincoln reading his "Gettysburg Address" with "four score" mentioned at the beginning, and ending with the pledge that the buried soldiers did not die in vain. Can we say the same for our soldiers in Afghanistan?
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday
(Hey!)
(Say, hey!)
"The representative from California has the floor"
The "first representative from California" I think of is Congressman Henry Waxman, who taxes and spends this country into oblivion and abandon. More precisely, of course "Green Day" as a California band, based in San Francisco, represents a city which has taken micromanaging to levels of domestic tyranny, pushing out the middle class in favor of government interests and moneyed interest with high real estate prices and heavy taxes.
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| Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) |
Sieg Heil to the president Gasman
Bombs away is your punishment
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your government
Bang bang goes the broken glass and
Kill all the fags that don't agree
Trials by fire, setting fire
Is not a way that's meant for me
Just cause (hey, hey, hey), just cause, because we're outlaws yeah!
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| Green Day's Mike Dirnt on Holiday in Montreal (Source: |
"President Gasman" sounds like "President Bush", but can just as well represent President Obama. He keeps our troops in Afghanistan, refuses to bring them home. He has persisted in the same Bush-Bashed policies of tax, spend, enlarge, regulate, frustrate. He has alienated our friends while emboldening our enemies in the Middle East.
"Pulverize the Eiffel towers" -- this line reminds me of Hitler's plan to blow up Paris should the Allied Powers take back France from Nazi Control. The line also refers to our country's frustration and distance from the French government, which refused to support our country's invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"Bang bang goes the broken glass" -- an allusion to Kristallknacht, the open pillaging of Jewish stores in Germany just before the Third Reich invaded Poland.
About "fags", one can speculate a reference to "The Defense of Marriage Act", but also the "Night of Long Knives", in which Hitler purged dissolute members from his ranks, including the openly gay leader of the Brown Shirts.
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
This is our lives on holiday
The "hollow lies" of the Obama Administration are coming to light, starting with the failed "ObamaCare" insurance mandate, which has done contrary to what the President promised, raising premiums, diminishing quality and access, and taxing people. While claiming to inaugurate an era of government transparency, the Obama Administration has been spying on everyone through the NSA. The Department of Justice seized the phone record of reports for the Associated Press as well as investigating Fox News. The IRS and the EPA targeted conservative groups by refusing to advance their applications for tax exemption status or environmental permits.
If any president gives off an allusion to "Seig Heil", "Green Day" could include President Obama, whose progressive policies are mirroring elements of Hitler's social engineering "National Socialism".
Green Day clearly declared that their song was anti-war, not just Anti-Bush. At least readers can also interpret these lyrics to be as anti-Obama, too.
That was quite a clever application to Green Day. Is Green Day a political band?
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