“Before I would ever consider myself a punk rocker, before that, I’m a songwriter,” Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong proclaimed to MTV’s John Norris just before the release of Nimrod, the band’s fifth studio album.
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It’s something unpredictable
But in the end, it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life
At the time, Green Day was facing the typical backlash of a punk band that is perceived to “sell out” only because they were tasting a bit of success. The band broke through on the album Dookie, which produced four massive hits. “When I Come Around” even hit the top 10. That could be considered the kiss of death for a punk band. The venues got larger, the schedule became more hectic, and the band continued full speed ahead. Dookie would go on to sell more than 20 million copies, becoming one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.
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
The next album, Insomniac, pivoted back toward the rawer sounds the band started with. Armstrong was clearly growing as a songwriter all along. The trio dug in their heels and rocked.
Armstrong reacted to the criticism, “I think I was just lost. I couldn’t find the strength to convince myself that what I was doing was a good thing. I was in a band that was huge because it was supposed to be huge because our songs were that good. But I couldn’t even feel I was doing the right thing because it felt like I was making so many people angry.”
Bassist Mike Dirnt said, “I felt at the time that there was a real urgency to what we were doing. There was a real urgency to stake our claim and say, ‘No, we belong here.’ It was really important to us to make sure people knew that we weren’t just a flash in the pan.”
It’s something unpredictable
But in the end, it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life
On Nimrod, the band swung back the other way. There was still plenty of punk rock, but they included elements of surf, ska, and, with “Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life),” folk music.
Dirnt referred to the release of the song as probably the “most punk” thing they could have done. The song reached no. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Armstrong told Rolling Stone, “It’s about trying to be cool, accepting that, in life, people go in different directions. People come into your life, and it’s wonderful, but they seem to go out of your life as quickly as they came in.”
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while
Producer Rob Cavallo suggested the addition of strings to the recording, “I knew we had done the right thing,” he said, “It was a hit the second I heard it.”
Armstrong was hesitant to play the song on the tour, “Right now, we’re refraining from pulling out a lot of that Nimrod stuff. We want to make things small. We don’t want to bring a horn section or a violin player out with us. A lot of people want to hear the old stuff, and that stuff is still just as significant to us.”
In an ironic twist, record stores reported a large number of returns from customers who bought Nimrod purely on the strength of the hit song, only to be disappointed the rest of the album didn’t share the same sort of sound.
“The first time we ever played that song was during an encore in New Jersey,” Armstrong said, “I had to pound a beer backstage to get up the courage. I knew we were gonna take a tomato to the face.”
It’s something unpredictable
But in the end, it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life
If Green Day thought they faced backlash for reaching the top 40, they were really feeling it for having an acoustic ballad with orchestration go multi-platinum. An ex-girlfriend of Armstrong originally inspired the song, but it resonated on different levels. The song of personal heartbreak with a sarcastic title was adopted as a contemplative high school graduation anthem. It was played at proms and weddings. It appeared in television shows and movies. Sports teams embraced it.
When the music video was created, the title was inverted to “Time of Your Life (Good Riddance).”
Drummer Tre Cool remembers the video shoot, “We had flown the night before, went to Los Angeles, got kicked out of about five different hotels. I threw televisions out of windows. Billie broke his front tooth trying to stop a security guard from stopping me from throwing a television out the window onto Sunset Boulevard. Basically, we got no sleep. We were up at the crack of dawn to record this video.”
Green Day won their first MTV Award for Best Alternative Video.
It’s something unpredictable
But in the end, it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life
Armstrong, Dirnt, and Cool have continued to push the boundaries of punk rock and embrace different elements in their music. Armstrong still considers himself, first and foremost, a songwriter. Punk rock is about expressing yourself, and “Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life)” is a good example of an introspective song that resonates with the masses. I agree with Dirnt. It’s the most punk rock song on Nimrod.
(Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Harley-Davidson)
