Jumat, 16 Juli 2010

Kerplunk!

Kerplunk!
1. 2,000 Light Years Away

This is a song about missing someone you love, thinking about them all the time and dreaming of being next to them again.

The song was inspired by Armstrong's relationship with Adrienne Nesser, his future wife, who at that time lived in Minnesota, while he lived in California. Obviously, being so far away from her made him miss her a lot, and 2,000 Light Years Away is one of the songs that he wrote to express his feelings towards her. The number 2,000 is probably based on the actual distance between the lovers (it's also mentioned in another song about Armstrong's wife - Westbound Sign: "is tragedy 2,000 miles away?") - the actual location between their hometowns is a lot less than 2,000 miles*, but the author roughly approximated the distance because obviously, when you are apart from someone you love, it seems like they are worlds away, even if it's just a few hundred miles.

The song also appears on The Jerky Boys Soundtrack(1995).

*The distance between Minneapolis, MN and Berkeley, CA is 1575 miles (2535 km).



2. One for the Razorbacks

The song tells a story about a girl named Juliet - her heart is broken and now she's not sure what she wants anymore. "Experience has got her down" and now she doesn't trust love anymore because she's realized that it's not always as great as you want it to be.

The narrator is a guy who believes that he can make Juliet happy. He knows that he's not perfect, but he wants to try and "bring her up again". He's willing to sacrifice his dignity and do anything for her, just so she opens up her heart again, because no matter how cruel and painful love can be - one can hardly be happy without it.



3. Welcome to Paradise

"It's about West Oakland, living in a warehouse with a lot of people, a bunch of artists and musicians, punks and whatever just lived all up and down, bums and junkies and thugs and gang members and stuff that just lived in that area. It's no place you want to walk around at night, but it's a neat warehouse where you can play basketball and stuff" - Armstrong.

The song is not only about a 'slum' that the author used to live in, it's also about leaving your parents' house. When you leave home and start a life of your own, you don't always get a house with 3 bedrooms and a swimming pool right away. In fact, most of the time you have nothing and have to live in some broken house with a bunch of friends. At first it scares you ("Dear mother, can you hear me whining..."), you panic and doubt you will ever succeed in this independent life you've decided to live, you think of quitting everything and going back home ("It makes me wonder why I'm still here..."). But people adapt to just about everything and soon you make friends and get used to your new living conditions. The new place becomes your home ("For some strange reason it's now feeling like my home").
"Some call it slums, some call it nice" - it's only slums when you look at it from a distance. But when you live and breathe it - it becomes nice because it is your home. Not your parents' home, but one of your own - and it's Paradise.



4. Christie Road

It's a common belief that this song is about a place where the author and his friends used to go to get high. However, this is only a part of it, and the lyrics are mostly not about smoking weed, but simply about a place where you want to go when you need to be alone - a place that you can call home. The narrator says that Christie Road is a place where he feels comfortable and where he can relax. He goes there when he's stressed out because that's the place where he feels complete, where he can forget about the rest of the world and just be himself.

The song isn't as much about the tracks on Christie Road as just about the need to be alone. We all need that sometimes, and if you're lucky, you have a special place where you can go to get your thoughts together, relax and be yourself - your own Christie Road.



5. Private Ale

The lyrics of this song are basically thinking out loud. The narrator is talking to him self as he's walking down a street alone and thinking about his life and future. He doesn't seem to care about anything and he just walks until he realizes that he's by the house of someone he's infatuated with. And he starts day-dreaming about them, letting his mind give in to temptation. He realizes that he'd rather think about this person than about his future that he doesn't seem to even care about.

There is a theory that Armstrong wrote this song for Adrienne to show his affection and attract her attention. However, the theory has no official confirmation.



6. Dominated Love Slave

This is one of the most deviant songs Green Day have ever released on an album. The song includes a variety of sexual dreams and descriptions of BDSM role playing which the narrator is offering his partner (or potential partner) to engage in. He's expressively explaining how good it would make him feel if his wishes came true and how passionate he is about fulfilling his desire to be a "dominated love slave".

Unlike most other Green Day songs, Dominated Love Slave has no hidden meaning or concealed implications. It's nothing but the love of kinky sex.



7. One of My Lies

Like many other songs on this album, One of My Lies is about the doubts and realizations associated with growing up. The narrator admits that he used to have naive self-centered views on life, he thought that he was the most important thing in the world and his life was priceless. But now he's realizing that he's just as small as everyone else and has the same flaws and doubts - he's not special, and now he's woken up to understand it. In his rage caused by these realizations, he's stating that no one else is special either - we're all small and disposable, and no one knows the answers to his questions.

All these realizations lead the narrator to another serious question, and that is whether there is a God, whether there is someone or something that actually knows the answers to eternal questions. Like so many others he was praying at night, because he'd been told that this was the right thing to do. Now he's reached the time when he starts questioning whether he believes in that himself - so far he has no answers. And he's wondering if he's just been lying to himself all along.

8. 80

Even though there is a theory that the song is about an 80-ounce bottle of beer, it is most definitely about Adrienne. The most interesting thing in this song is the change in the description of love. Love songs that appear on 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours express insecurity and doubt about the author's feelings. Will she like me or will she reject me? Is this right or wrong? Maybe I should give this up…In 80, Armstrong once again describes the craziness that takes over your mind when you fall in love, but this time he doesn't hesitate or doubt the feeling, and the earlier "I find it hard to be myself" from The Judge's Daughter now changes to "I must admit that I enjoy myself".

Like one famous quote says, "It's not you I love, I love who I become when I'm with you" (or something like that). Not all of us find our other half right away. We often fall in love with wrong people and have to wait for the real thing to come. And the greatest blessing of finding your other half is that when you do meet this person - everything falls into place; they drive you insane, but at the same time they make you accept yourself because you feel needed and loved. The only time when 1 and 1 make 1. To a certain extent the analysis of this song might be biased since we all know how things worked out between Armstrong and Nesser. Yet, 'liking self' is one of the most important signs of true love - and that's the feeling that this song is filled with.




9. Android

In this song the narrator is wondering what will happen to him when he grows older. He starts off with thinking about an old man he saw - he sees that his man didn't succeed in life and realizes that this can happen to anyone. He wonders what this man was dreaming of when he was younger. Everyone has dreams of a great future, but it doesn't mean those dreams will come true - in fact, you might end up "wearing woman's shoes and being crazy" like this old man.

And so the narrator starts going deeper into his thoughts of what will happen to him when he grows older, and whether he will grow old at all. He thinks he's wasting too much time on things that won't get him anywhere and it scares him because he realizes how quickly the time will pass. He knows that time goes by fast and the more time you lose the fewer chances you have to succeed in life - "it's crazy".

The title of the song might be referring to the narrator's opinion that we often live life without thinking about our future, we "hide away from hopes behind a smile and smoking dope" - we act like we are not human, but only resemble humans, while inside we are a lot more like robots that have no real plans or ambitions, and hence no future.



10. No One Knows

The narrator in this song expresses his fear of growing up and turning into someone who has to plan out everything they do. He sees that his friends are aging and realizes that this will inevitably happen to him too. He doesn't express a certain opinion - he simply looks at both sides of the problem and tries to figure out what to do. He's saying that he doesn't want to live a planned out life, but wants to stay spontaneous and have fun for as long as he can. Yet, he's saying that sometimes he unintentionally hurts people with who he is, and that makes him wonder whether he should somehow change, have a plan for life, grow up. He's wondering whether what he's doing with his life is right.

This kind of insecurity could be caused not only by facing the inevitability of entering the adult life, but also by doubts about one's carrier or love life. At some point in life most people wonder whether they should change their course in life - whether they should still reach out for their dreams or settle with a steady job, whether they should have a steady partner or search around for new relationships and experiences. Whatever the inspiration was for this song, the author didn't find the answer to his questions - after analyzing all of his doubts and feelings, the only conclusion he could come up with was "I don't know".

11. Who Wrote Holden Caulfield

"Its a song about forgetting what you're going to say...It's trying to get motivated to do something because your elders tell you, you have to get motivated. So then you get frustrated and you think that you should do something but you end up doing nothing. But then you enjoy it." - Armstrong.

Holden Caulfield is a character from a J. D. Salinger book Catcher in the Rye, which served as aninspiration for this song.

In this song the narrator is trying to recall what he was going to say, but realizes that he can't remember what it was. And just like his lazy mind, he himself can't get motivated and is becoming more and more idle and frustrated. He wants to do something big and meaningful, "make a stand" - but he doesn't have enough will or strength to fulfill that desire, and so he ends up almost forgetting what it was that he wanted to do.

As the author mentioned, the reason of the frustration might be the obligation to do what your parents tell you to - first you have no motivation for doing what they want you to do and you want to rebel, but then you realize that you have no motivation for rebelling either and you just might "end up quitting". As a result, you're doing nothing and drowning in your own apathy.

12. Words I Might Have Ate

In this song the narrator is admitting the mistakes he's made in a relationship with someone he really loved. He confesses that this was "something real" that he could have had, but he lost it and it was solely his own fault. He has the best memories about the girl he loved and he regrets that he didn't try hard enough to keep what they had together, but now it's too late and all he can do is "take the pain".

The song is filled with the spirit of the album expressing the difficulties of realizations of one's mistakes and self-deceptions. The narrator takes the blame for his actions and admits everything he's done wrong - but he can't change anything, and once again he's left without an answer to the one question that keeps dwelling in his mind: "Why?"



13. Sweet Children
This song opposes "bad kids" to "good kids" - those who always get in trouble to those who prefer to always be nice and never do anything that could cause problems. And maybe the bad kids constantly get themselves in trouble and don't know when to stop, but they have fun memories - "remember when?"



14. Best Thing In Town
The lyrics are exaggeratedly abstract - the narrator is trying to show that this person he considers the best thing in town makes him almost lose his mind. He's describing his confusing state of mind ("all I see are sounds", "...I can't find a missing piece of a thought that's in my mind"), yet admits that he's willing to do crazy things and eagerly accept all the weirdness of this relationship, because he's convinced that this person is worth it, since they are "the best thing around".

15. Strangeland
Strangeland is a highly abstract song in which the narrator is describing a mysterious place that his mind created. He describes the "floating image in his mind" and the "strange beings". Some people believe this song might be based on a book or movie, but this theory is not confirmed. The song might just be a dream or fantasy. However, there is a possibility that the song is about imaginary worlds that people create to make themselves feel wanted when their life in the real world makes them feel unhappy and worthless. They dream of a strangeland that might be weird and unpredictable, but where they feel important, because it is their world.
16. My Generation
This is a cover of a song by The Who from their album MyGeneration (1965, UK/Germany)/The Who Sings My Generation (1966, USA).

Diposting oleh Green Day's movement come to Indonesia di 17.59

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