It feels like only yesterday that Green Day announced their last album, publicly known as Father of All… because the official title features a swear in it. That album’s reception was… less than welcome by the majority of the fan base. My own opinion is that it was a decent album with some bad missteps after 2016’s Revolution Radio.
One pandemic, one massive tour with Weezer and Fall Out Boy, and years of hinting at something new later, the trio of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool have returned. Their new single, “The American Dream is Killing Me,” released on 24 October, after a months-long campaign, taking back the jokes people make about their hit single “Wake Me Up When September Ends.”
The politically charged nature of their songs dwindled in the 2010s, with the last album to do so being 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. But this new song throws it right back in your face. Lyrics like “*******, I am so grateful / Forever faithful to” show in this relapse what made them so beloved among the youth of the 2000s. This leads into the chant-worthy chorus, ringing out “The American dream is killing me!” The chorus is a mockery of Manifest Destiny and the way American society has evolved over the years. Within 3 minutes, the group calls out the housing inequality, the homeless and jobless, and the younger generations, sentiments shared by people of their own generation but through a sarcastic lens.
This is also seen in the video, where the band plays for a crowd of zombies, an allegory for those who latch themselves onto others’ words and use them to justify their own beliefs. This makeshift mass hysteria call-out is prevalent throughout. Even in the ending, where a man shoots a still-living woman instead of a zombie due to his paranoia. The power of Green Day shouldn’t be overlooked because of their slump in recent years. Any past, present, or future Green Day fans should check this song out and rock out like zombies.
This is the first single from their 14th studio album, Saviors, due out on January 19, 2024, from Reprise Records. Pre-orders for the website-exclusive vinyl records and CD box sets are available now.
