Thursday Memoir - Green Day’s Dookie Album

Oh, Green Day. This entry will contain no critical analysis of lyrics or musings about the band’s import to my love or sex life.

Really what can you say about Dookie other than “wheeeeeee!” That friendly pop-punk - so much less cynical than the pop-punk bands that came after Green Day, like Blink 182 - was just a little taste of fun in 1994.

Post-grunge but pre-emo, Green Day were a Bay Area band and I was a Bay Area preteen. They were angry about something I didn’t understand and I was angry because I was 12. It was a perfect match. I loved them and wrote them fan letters and maybe even stalked them a little.

Mostly I’m writing this entry because the Thursday Memoirs have been about sexuaity, or love, or a developing sense of self. But you know what music is to me? It’s a fucking good time. And maybe if there were any lessons in Dookie it was “Kristin, don’t take yourself so seriously! Let loose!” And so that’s what this album means to me still. I know it touches on much deeper issues of problematic teenage drug use, sexuality, and anxiety disorders, and if I had been a 17 year old bisexual, agoraphobic stoner boy in 1994, I might have had a heartfelt, sincere emotional response to the record. But I was a pretty normal 11 year old girl. And to me, the album meant that me and my two 7th grade best friends could jump around madly and write love letters to Billie Joe, Tre Cool and Mike. I appreciate it now as a real punk album - one of the very few mainstream punk albums from the 90s, and I’m actually glad that songs like “Coming Clean” (about Billie Joe’s bisexuality) were around for kids to identify with. And I think it’s fantastic that they actually played this stuff on the radio, because it’s pretty risque. The songs are passionate without being practiced, accessible while still being artistic.

I am inclined to post songs that weren’t singles off this album since now - 14 years later (can you believe it?!) - you still hear most of the singles on the radio all the time.

So the very first track on the album is “Burnout” and it starts with a bang. Two quick drum shots, then guitars and vocals. It’s about…a burnout. Like I said, there isn’t really a lot of analysis necessary here.

It’s actually really a sad song, lyrically, as most of the songs on the album are (though who can deny the bittersweet hilarity of the lyrics of “Longview,” specifically “When masturbation’s lost its fun you’re fuckin’ broken”?).

“Pulling Teeth” was always my favorite song on the album. It’s kind of a horrifying song about the narrator being horribly abused by his girlfriend. But it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it:

I also HAVE to post “F.O.D” because of that little secret song at the end, “All By Myself,” which starts at 4:09. Do bands still do the “secret song” thing? I get so much of my music digitally that I don’t even know anymore. Plus, I STILL blast “F.O.D” and yell “fuck off and die” when someone at work or at home has pissed me off. It’s cathartic. I love the song because it starts out kind of sing-songy and cute, and then the guitars and drums start blasting and the curse words start and you realize that Green Day is good for the rock & roll soul.

I hope you are all now painting your fingernails green and slam dancing. Enjoy. I would be interested to hear from anyone for whom this album was more than just a good time, but for me, writing “I *heart* Billie Joe” on my Jansport with whiteout was about as deep as it got with these guys. And, as I said, I think THAT response is also important and part of Green Day’s appeal. They were the boy band before boy bands for the rock and roll girl. But their appeal was their talent for being serious and fun, and serious fun (see what I did there?)