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Music for President
Music for President
American Idiot
by Green Day
Music is all about self-expression and creativity, but how many of our favorite
songs have a deeper political meaning? Which songs talk about what is really
going on in the world, besides love and heartbreak?
We’ll break down just a few for you.
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For our first example, let’s go back to
the year 2004. The year of Shrek 2 and
the release of Sharktale, but also a
great year for the American pop punk
band Green Day. In this year Green
Day had a very successful comeback
with their 7 th studio album: American
Idiot. The title song received so many
positive critics that it was nominated
for four Grammy awards in 2005.
American Idiot is considered as one
of the bands most popular songs. But
what does it have to do with politics?
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That is because the song talks about
how average American youth are living
in a metropolis of rhetoric, lies, and
censorship. In that way the modern
media are keeping them dumb in a
sense. It’s also about how the singer
of the band, Billie Joe Armstrong,
doesn’t support being a “redneck” and
that he is against American media.
He uses phrases like “Now everybody
do the propaganda and sing along to
the age of paranoia.” Due to lyrics like
this, the song is seen as controversial.