A strange, and frankly pretty dumb, thing happened recently when the world suddenly seemed to remember that Green Day is a political band.
To most of us, that was a “well, duh” moment: These are the guys who made an entire Grammy-winning, Bush-flaming opus about American idiocracy. But then there were the others who were either genuinely, or more likely performatively outraged—a meltdown spurred by Billie Joe Armstrong tweaking an “American Idiot” lyric from “I’m not part of the redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.”
(Never mind that Armstrong has been changing that lyric for years now; this particular instance happened during the band’s televised performance on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, in front of a wider, more disparate crowd than the fans who continue to pack their summer stadium tours.)
The ensuing online backlash involved Elon Musk pouting, “Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it,” and others ignorantly scratching their heads over the trio “getting so political these days” and urging them to “stay out of politics.” But ever since the band—singer/guitarist Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool—broke out of the Bay Area 30 years ago with catchy pop-punk anthems for a jilted generation, it’s always been obvious what side of history they’re on.
That vociferous streak continues on Green Day’s 14th studio album, Saviors, out on Friday. If you do have the time to listen to Billie Joe whine, there’s plenty here to get excited about, with 15 songs that straddle the line between teenage spirit and wisened adulthood. They’re back to their lovably insolent ways on “Look Ma No Brains,” and they wax nostalgic on “1981” and “Suzie Chapstick.” Then there are the more grown-up offerings that show off Armstrong’s sophisticated songwriting, like “Dilemma,” about his and his peers’ struggles with addiction, and the stunning power ballads “Goodnight Adeline” and “Father to a Son.”
And of course, there’s plenty of political and social commentary to go around. We’ve been overdue for an election-year album from Green Day, whose last LP, 2020’s Father of All Motherfuckers, largely skirted politics in favor of poppier flare. Here, the band is focused and direct as they attempt to make sense of the chaos around us, raising the banner on the album opener and lead single, “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” and raging on from there. Below, see the most politically and socially charged moments on Saviors.
Armstrong and his searing pen strike first on “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” a bluntly titled slice of American Idiot-esque anger.
“Don’t want no huddled masses / TikTok and taxes / Under the overpass / Sleeping in broken glass,” Armstrong sings. Later, he reflects on a world that’s left people “unemployed and obsolete” and relents, “From sea to shining sea / Whitewashed upon the beach / My country under siege / On private property.”
If Musk didn’t like Green Day’s “MAGA agenda” lyric from New Year’s Eve, he certainly won’t like this track and its dig at billionaire-funded vanity space travel: “Coma city / Mask on your face / Bankrupt the planet / For assholes in space,” Armstrong sings on the pop-punk cut.
Meanwhile, references to gunshots make up most of the chorus; clearly, gun violence is still front of mind for Armstrong, who raged about the epidemic on Revolution Radio’s “Bang Bang.” “Pull down the shade, board up the windows,” Armstrong sings here, before warning, “Don’t call the cops / Word on the street is / They all quit their jobs”
Here, Armstrong aptly points to 2016 as the year everything seemed to go downhill: “Ever since Bowie died / It hasn’t been the same,” he observes, before tackling the opioid crisis (“grandma’s on the fentanyl now”), racism (“everyone is racist”), and generational divides (“Gen-Z killing, baby boomer now”).
None of this, he predicts, can be readily fixed: “Are we in hell / Or is this just a fantasy? / I can’t see this ending well / Now that it’s too late.”
This decade, Armstrong posits, is all despair and violence, where “I drink my media and turn it into vomit.” Elsewhere, he alludes to the deadly 2021 mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, with the lyric, “Another shooting in a supermarket / I spent my money on a bloody, soft target / Playing with matches and I’m lighting Colorado.”
Once again, Armstrong’s outlook isn’t a particularly sunny one: “Congratulations, best of luck and blessings / We’re all together and we’re living in the 20’s / Salutations on another era / My condolences / Ain’t that a kick in the head.”
There’s nothing overtly political about this sauntering closing track, but it does marry the album’s two most influential predecessors—1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot—pretty nicely, as Armstrong describes the “evening news” as his “favorite cartoon,” where “everyone’s a victim and it makes me want to puke.”
In the final moments of the album, Armstrong invokes Kurt Cobain with the line “Everybody’s famous, stupid, and contagious,” before concluding, “We all die young someday.” Even so, Saviors proves this band still has plenty of life, and a whole lot of fight, left.
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