Songs Lyrics and YT- Youtube Music Videos

Green Day - Coming Clean

Green Day - Coming Clean Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Dookie
Released: 1994

Coming Clean Lyrics

Seventeen and strung out on confusion
Trapped inside a roll of disillusion
I found out what it takes to be a man
Now mom and dad will never understand

Secrets collecting dust but never forget
Skeletons come to life in my closet
I found out what it takes to be a man
Now mom and dad will never understand
What's happening to me

Seventeen and Coming Clean for the first time
I finally figured out myself for the first time
I found out what it takes to be a man
Now mom and dad will never understand
What's happened to me

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Coming Clean

Front man Billie Joe Armstrong has stated that this song is about coming out of the closet. Billie Joe himself stated, "I think I've always been bisexual" in a 1995 issue of The Advocate. He also brings up his thoughts on the issues of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the music world. (thanks, Lauren - Laurel Springs, NJ)

More from the Advocate interview with Billie Joe: "I think mostly it's been kept in my head. I've never really had a relationship with another man. But it is something that comes up as a struggle in me. It especially came up when I was about 16 or 17. In high school people think you have to be so macho. People get attacked just because someone insinuates something about their sexuality. I think that's gruesome." (thanks, Elvira - Moscow)

Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends

Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: American Idiot
Released: 2004

Wake Me Up When September Ends Lyrics

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake Me Up When September Ends

Like my fathers come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Ring out the bells again
Like we did when spring began
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Like my father's come to pass
Twenty years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends
Wake me up when September ends
Wake me up when September ends

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1, 1982. At his father's funeral, Billie cried, ran home and locked himself in his room. When his mother got home and knocked on the door to Billie's room, Billie simply said, "Wake me up when September ends," hence the title.

The line "seven years has gone so fast" is a reference to how Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt's band Sweet Children (which would morph into Green Day), was formed seven years after Armstrong's father died.

"20 years has gone so fast" represents the time from his father's death to when Billie Joe wrote the song.

This was originally slated for Green Day's 2002 compilation album Shenanigans, but Billie Joe didn't feel that he was in an emotional state to record it, so the song was held back and used on American Idiot. (thanks, Clark - Baltimore, MD)

The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who directed Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood starred in the video, which isn't about Armstrong's father, but more a reflection on the mood in American after the September 11 attacks. In an interview with MTV, Bayer said this video was "hands down the greatest thing I've ever done." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

According to VH1's Pop-Up Video, all the explosions in the clip were real. One effects guy even had to dodge a rocket when it flew through the window where he was stationed.

Green Day - Basket Case

Green Day - Basket Case Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Dookie
Released: 1994

Basket Case Lyrics

Do you have the time to listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at once
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Or am I just stoned

I went to a shrink
To analyze my dreams
She says it's lack of sex that's bringing me down
I went to a whore
He said my life's a bore
So quit my whining cause it's bringing her down

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
A ya-ya-ya

Grasping to control
So I better hold on

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Or am I just stoned?

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Basket Case

This song is about anxiety attacks and a feeling that you are going crazy. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong suffered from various panic disorders while he was growing up - he would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack and walk around his neighborhood to settle down. "Basket Case" was a cathartic song and personal song for him. "The only way I knew how to deal with it was to write a song about it," he explained.

This song stereotypes the whole condition of paranoia and compares it to being stoned.

By the time this came out, Green Day had already released two albums on an independent label. They had a small but ardent following that led to a bidding war for the band, which was won by Reprise Records. "Basket Case" was the third single from the album, following "Longview" and "Welcome To Paradise," and it was their breakout hit, getting airplay on Rock, Top 40, and Alternative radio stations.

The singles from Dookie were not available for sale (an effort to spur sales of the album), but were released to radio, making them ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Basket Case" peaked at #26 on the Airplay chart of October 8, 1994, which was around the time of peak frenzy during Green Day concerts. The song also got a nice push from MTV, which put the Mark Kohr directed video in hot rotation.

In their early years, the band was constantly on tour and eating some real bad food. This food didn't always digest well, and the album title is what they called the result when it didn't.

A basket case is slang for an emotionally unstable, dysfunctional or completely useless person. Originally, the word referred to an amputee, especially a soldier, who had lost all four limbs; it was coined during World War I. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Blasting right into the verse at the beginning of this song is something that set it apart. Simplicity was a hallmark of the Dookie album, and while omitting an intro made little marketing sense (DJs couldn't talk up the song), it got right into the meat of the track. Tre Cool of Green Day cites the first Beatles album, Please Please Me, as an influence on Dookie, since those early Beatles songs also got right to the point.

When Billie Joe Armstrong spoke with Rolling Stone in 2014, he explained that this song will always be a part of the band's setlist, but that its meaning has changed for him. "It's about other people now," he said. "When I look at people as we play that song, they're having their own moment. At that point, I'm the audience."

The band played a raucous version of this song when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Green Day - Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Green Day - Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Nimrod
Released: 1997

Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Lyrics

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

So take the photographs, and still-frames in your mind
Hang it on the shelf of good health and good time
Tattoo's of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this when his girlfriend moved to Ecuador. He tried to be levelheaded about it, but to show his anger, he named the song "Good Riddance" and made "Time Of Your Life" the subtitle. The song shows us about life, how we are not to question it and keep moving on. (thanks, Rainah - Tacoma, WA)

This was written as an acoustic song to distinguish it from the heavily produced rock music that was popular in the '90s. Armstrong recalled to Spin Magazine in a 2010 interview: "That was really the first time we attempted a ballad. The first time we ever played that song was during an encore in New Jersey - I had to pound a beer backstage to get up the courage. I knew we were gonna take a tomato to the face."

The song was such a sonic departure for the band that record stores reported a high rate of returns from customers who purchased the Nimrod album expecting similar songs.

Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song in 1993 and submitted it for the band's first major label album, Dookie, which was released in 1994. Both the band and their label agreed that it was a great song, but didn't fit on the album, which was loaded with Punk blasters. The song was held back and included on the Nimrod album.

This song was featured on two very high-profile TV shows in 1998. It was used on the penultimate Seinfeld episode in a scene where the cast takes a nostalgic look back at all the adventures they had on the show. It also featured in the ER in an episode "Gut Reaction," in a scene where a young boy dies of cancer.

The album version begins with guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong playing a wrong note. He begins again, repeats the wrong note, and proclaims "f--k!". Then the actual song begins. Radio versions, of course, omit this. (thanks, Tom - New York, NY)

This played when England walked onto the pitch in their football match against France in the 1998 World Cup. (thanks, Leanne - Crawley, England)

This was the official theme for golf's PGA Tour in 1998. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

This won for Best Alternative Video at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards.

Billie Joe Armstrong came up for the video's concept. Directed by Mark Kohr, it pauses on ordinary moments in people's everyday lives. To capture the "still frames in your mind," the extras were told not too blink, but some of them couldn't help it. Armstrong does plenty of blinking, but you won't see him smiling. Drummer Tre Cool chipped Armstrong's front teeth while he was throwing television sets out of their hotel window - a stunt that nearly cost them the video.

Green Day - Geek Stink Breath

Green Day - Geek Stink Breath Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Insomniac
Released: 1995

Geek Stink Breath Lyrics

I'm on a mission
I made my decision
To lead a path of self destruction
A slow progression
Killing my complexion
And it's rotting out my teeth

I'm on a roll
No self control
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine
Don't know what I want
That's all that I've got
And I'm picking scabs off my face

Every hour my blood is turning sour
And my pulse is beating out of time
I found a treasure
filled with sick pleasure
And it sits on a thick white line

I'm on a roll
No self control
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine
Don't know what I want
That's all that I've got
And I'm picking scabs off my face

I'm on a mission
I've got no decision
Like a cripple running the rat race
Wish in one hand shit in the other
And see which one gets filled first

I'm on a roll
No self control
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine
Don't know what I want
That's all that I've got
And I'm picking scabs off my face

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Geek Stink Breath Song Chart

This is about amphetamine and methamphetamine drug use. (thanks, Tom - New Hartford, CT)

This was the first single from Insomniac, which was Green Day's fourth album. Their first 2 were released on a small label and didn't sell well, but their third, Dookie, was one of the best-selling albums of 1993. This put high expectations on this album, which also sold well, but not as well as Dookie.

Like most Green Day songs, this was not sold as a single in the US, which helped sell more copies of the album. It earned the chart position because of radio play.

This song made it's debut months before the release of Insomniac. While still on the Dookie tour, the band made an appearance on Saturday Night Live. In addition to performing their current single "When I Come Around," they were told to perform either of their previous singles "Longview" or "Basket Case" for their second number. As a bit of rebellion against their management and the media, the band played a very crude version of this as their second song. It became Insomniac's first single when the album was released many months later. (thanks, George - Islip Terrace, NY)

Green Day - Longview

Green Day - Longview Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Dookie
Released: 1994

Longview Lyrics

I sit around and watch the tube but, nothing's on
I change the channels for an hour or two
Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit
I'm sick of all the same old shit
In a house with unlocked doors
And I'm fucking lazy

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored, I'm going blind!!!
And I smell like shit

Peel me off this Velcro seat and get me moving
I sure as hell can't do it by myself
I'm feeling like a dog in heat
Barred indoors from the summer street
I locked the door to my own cell
And I lost the key

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored, I'm going blind!!!
And I smell like shit

I got no motivation
Where is my motivation
No time for motivation
Smoking my inspiration

I sit around and watch the phone, but no one's calling
Call me pathetic, call me what you will
My mother says to get a job
But she don't like the one she's got
When masturbation's lost its fun
You're fucking lonely

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored, I'm going blind
And loneliness has to suffice
Bite my lip and close my eyes
Slipping away to paradise
Some say, "Quit or I'll go blind"
But it's just a myth

Writer/s: ARMSTRONG, BILLIE JOE / COOL, TRE / DIRNT, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Longview Song Chart

This song is about being bored, lonely, and feeling like a complete loser. In an interview with VH1, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said: "I was just in a creative rut. I was in-between houses sleeping on people's couches. It's a song about trying not to feel pathetic and lonely. I didn't think that masturbation was really seen from the point of view that I was looking at it. In songs like 'Turning Japanese' it always seemed more about people pulling a pud or something. I was coming from a lonely guy's perspective: No girlfriend, no life, complete loser."

The lyrics refer to masturbation as means of escape: "Take me away to paradise." Lead singer Billy Joe describes his masturbation habits at the time as "chronic."

This was the first Green Day single released on a major label: Reprise Records. This was not a hit, but their next single, "Basket Case," launched them to popularity. Before Dookie came out, Green Day released two albums on a small label.

In a 1995 Rolling Stone magazine interview, bassist Mike Dirnt revealed that he initially wrote the unique bass riff to this song while on an acid trip. The next day a sober Mike, along with Billie Joe, had a hard time remembering the riff they liked so much the night before. What became the song's bassline was what they could remember to the best of their ability. (thanks, George - Islip Terrace, NY)

Most radio stations aired the edited version with the line "I smell like sh-t" mumbled at the end.

True to the Punk style, most of Green Day's songs to this point were very short. This was one of their longest at 3:59. (thanks, Adrian - Wilmington, DE)

Green Day recorded the Dookie album at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. Their first attempts at recording "Longview" during these sessions didn't take, but they then went on tour with Bad Religion and performed the song every night, which helped them refine it. When the tour ended, they went back to Fantasy and recorded the proper version of the song.

A lot of consideration went into how this song would flow on the album. The open, which contrary to most Green Day tracks is built with a slow fade up, was designed to follow the previous Dookie track, "Chump," which gradually fades out after a brazen climax.