‘Jesus of Suburbia’: Billie Joe Armstrong on his favourite Green Day song: “It’s so epic”
For any aspiring musician, most original songs tend to feel like your own children. Even though there might be some that are preferable to others, there’s nothing like being able to translate the melodies in your head through an instrument and onto a final tape for everyone to hear. While Green Day has already made its fair share of classics since the 1990s, Billie Joe Armstrong does have one track that stands out more than others.
Armstrong was destined to become a songwriter before he was out of his teens. After starting as a child star singing songs in his local area, Armstrong quickly got his punk rock conversion when listening to what was coming out of the Bay Area rock scene, loving the sounds of artists like Operation Ivy and Crimpshrine.
Inspired to write original material, Armstrong would eventually start up his own band with Mike Pritchard, soon to be named Mike Dirnt, under the moniker ‘Sweet Children’. After drafting in Tre Cool for their second album Kerplunk, though, the band (now rechristened Green Day) had started to hit on a sound that was far more cohesive than what the other bands on the scene were doing.
Although the band’s eventual turn to a major label made them pariahs of the punk rock scene, the success of their album Dookie lit a fire in the belly of every kid looking to annoy their parents with their music. As opposed to the sad sounds of grunge, songs like ‘Welcome to Paradise’ and ‘Longview’ were a lighthearted look at what life could offer, with Armstrong singing about living on his own for the first time and spending the entire day masturbating.
While the group were known as three of the most lovable punks in rock, Armstrong didn’t have any desire to play strictly punk rock forever, instead going down different sonic avenues on albums like Nimrod and Warning. As the pop-punk diehards started to become bored with the group’s experimental period, something shifted when Armstrong had the idea of combining pieces of his songs.
Starting from scratch after throwing away the intended album Cigarettes and Valentines, Armstrong knew he hit on something potent when writing a kiss-off to the Bush administration on ‘American Idiot’. Looking to make something more ambitious than what they had done before, Armstrong started to tell the tale of the average teenager living through 2000s America, which turned into ‘Jesus of Suburbia’.
Running over nine minutes, the song is a vivid punk rock take on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, taking every instrument at the band’s disposal to create an enthralling piece that ends with the protagonist leaving his home for the big city. The song would later become the mission statement for American Idiot, leading to even more recklessness on tracks like ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Holiday’.
When looking through his back catalogue, Armstrong thought that ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ is one of the band’s crowning achievements, telling Vulture, “‘Jesus of Suburbia’ is the one that sticks out. It’s so epic. I mean, I’m tooting my own horn, but I think it encompasses so much about my life and friendship and family, and it’s flamboyant and big and bombastic. It’s one of those moments where I was feeling like I wanted to take a big risk”.
Even though Armstrong didn’t have to play to his critics anymore, ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ was one of the most punk rock statements he could have made at the time. In an era when most pop-punk bands were making tight odes to boredom, Armstrong was channelling Queen and leaving his competition in the dust.
