“American Idiot" by Green Day

American Idiot
Reprise
2004




Though focusing on the media, this song implicates politicians and the media as acting together to keep people uninformed, distracted, and fearful. In this way they can continue to enrich themselves.

Don't want to be an American idiot

Don't want a nation under the new mania

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

The subliminal mind fuck America

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

Well maybe I'm the faggot America

I'm not a part of a redneck agenda

Now everybody do the propaganda

And sing along to the age of paranoia

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

Don't want to be an American idiot

One nation controlled by the media

Information age of hysteria

It's calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

Interpretation

Don't want to be an American idiot

Don't want a nation under the new mania

And can you hear the sound of hysteria?

The subliminal mind fuck America

This stanza communicates the narrator’s disgust for the trend he sees in the United States. It is characterized by “[idiocy]” (or uninformed passivity), “mania” (or pop culture crazes), and “hysteria” (or fear). The narrator views these traits as coming from an insidious (“subliminal”) source.

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Clarifying his first thoughts, the narrator describes our nation as “alien” in the sense that we are strangers to each other. We are disconnected in our fear, stupidity, and obsession with fads. This brings on a “new kind of tension” where “everything isn’t meant to be okay”. This means that the media and our leaders strive to encourage the three maladies (idiocy, mania, and hysteria). The media and our politicians want our society to be broken so they can feed off the money and power that flows out of this arrangement in their direction.

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

In this stanza the narrator goes on to assert that “television” trains us to lust for what might happen “tomorrow” implying an addiction to material and personal gain. Next, the narrator describes the political side. He says our leaders don’t want us to “follow” them. They’d rather have us apathetically captivated by our materialism so they can go on enriching themselves. If we did wake up we would see plenty of reason “to argue” with what they are doing.

Well maybe I'm the faggot America

I'm not a part of a redneck agenda

Now everybody do the propaganda

And sing along to the age of paranoia

The narrator goes on the defensive in this stanza. The response from the media and politicians is to condemn him as being part of a “faggot America” or an extreme liberal. The narrator does not deny this accusation but instead gladly denies being part of the conservative extreme, which he describes as the “redneck agenda”. But then he steps back and claims that the fury from each side is just an example of the “paranoia” that characterizes the “propaganda” of our media.

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

Don't want to be an American idiot

One nation controlled by the media

Information age of hysteria

It's calling out to idiot America

This stanza focuses solely on the media. The narrator believes the United States is “controlled by the media”. This power is used to promote “hysteria” and a lethargic and disinterested population swallows these easy tidbits of tabloid journalism rather than seek out the truth.

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alien nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue

“Run to the Water” by Live

The Distance to Here
Radioactive Records
1999

This song draws on the popular theme of water, which evokes images of baptism, quenching thirst, life-giving rain, etc. The picture here is of water drops joining with the ocean to become one, which parallels the uniting with God that will happen with us as we grow more intimate with God. Most of the song uses the plural “we” to describe both intimate experiences with God and falling back away. This is to signify that redemption and embrace by God is ultimately for all of creation (“we”) and not just the few individuals who get the recipe correct.

Oh desert speak to my heart

Oh woman of the earth

Maker of children who weep for love

Maker of this birth

'Til your deepest secrets are known to me

I will not be moved

Don't try to find the answer

When there ain't no question here

Brother let your heart be wounded

And give no mercy to your fear

Adam and Eve live down the street from me

Babylon is every town

It's as crazy as it’s ever been

Love’s a stranger all around

In a moment we lost our minds here

And lay our spirit down

Today we lived a thousand years

All we have is now

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

And I will never leave you

'Till we can say,"this world was just a dream

We were sleeping now we are awake"

'Til we can say

In a moment we lost our minds here

And dreamt the world was round

A million mile fall from grace

Thank god we missed the ground

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

With a nuclear fire of love in our hearts

Yeah, I can see it now Lord

Out beyond the breaking of waves

And the tribulation

It's a place and a home of ascended souls

Who swam out there in love!

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

With a nuclear fire of love in our hearts

Rest easy baby, rest easy

And recognize it all as light and rainbows

Smashed to smithereens and be happy

Run to the water

Interpretation

Oh desert speak to my heart

Oh woman of the earth

Maker of children who weep for love

Maker of this birth

'Til your deepest secrets are known to me

I will not be moved

In this stanza the narrator describes his search for truth. The “desert” implies an atheistic search for answers, while the image of Mother Nature (“woman of the earth”) describes a pantheistic approach. The “maker of children who weep for love” depicts pagan religions and especially fertility cults. The “maker of this birth” finally includes God (and the rebirth through Christ) in the search for truth. The narrator resolves not to give up (to “not be moved”) until he finds the answers to his questions (the “deepest secrets” of life).

Don't try to find the answer

When there ain't no question here

Brother let your heart be wounded

And give no mercy to your fear

The narrator gives advice to fellow truth-seekers (“brother”) in this stanza. The first two lines reveal that the narrator believes we create unnecessary questions. Our answers might be good answers but the questions are imaginary, which invalidates the answer. He advises that a search for truth shouldn’t just be an intellectual pursuit but must be born out of brokenness (a “wounded” heart) and fear; we shouldn’t try to bottle up our fear but allow it to inform us.

Adam and Eve live down the street from me

Babylon is every town

It's as crazy as it’s ever been

Love’s a stranger all around

In this stanza the narrator compares the Biblical “Adam and Eve” to people all around him. The implication here is that the sin done by “Adam and Eve” is repeated by all of us. According to the narrator, “Babylon” (Biblical shorthand for an evil empire that opposes God) is “every town”; every group of people are guilty of opposing God. The narrator has covered the sin of individuals and communities already and reinforces this idea by stating that “it’s as crazy as it’s ever been” meaning that we have not become any less sinful as civilization has aged. That “Love’s a stranger all around” shows what the remedy is: Love.

In a moment we lost our minds here

And lay our spirit down

Today we lived a thousand years

All we have is now

This stanza describes the forgiveness and grace the narrator experiences when he lays his “spirit down”. This powerful conversion experience is described as living “a thousand years”. The statement “all we have is now” is directed to God and states that the divine union possible only through complete transformation is a blissful moment that the narrator hopes will not end. When taken with the previous stanza, the narrator is confessing his sinfulness (and the sinfulness of all humanity) and then experiencing redemption and renewal. Since this stanza uses a plural pronoun, the narrator may be anticipating the redemption and renewal of all creation even as he is experiencing this reality personally.

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

This stanza builds on the previous picture of salvation. Far from a warm and cuddly experience, the narrator is “burnt to the core” by his brush with God and evokes images of Isaiah 6’s ‘who will go for us’ passage. Emerging from this encounter, the narrator says that “we’ll cut through the madness” referring back to the third stanza and how, as transformed ambassadors of God’s kingdom, we will combat the evils on earth (“these streets below the moon”).

And I will never leave you

'Till we can say,"this world was just a dream

We were sleeping now we are awake"

'Til we can say

The narrator pledges loyalty to God (“I will never leave you”) as a result of his conversion. The second and third lines represent a hopeful wish that God’s kingdom will replace the current world that is “just a dream”. The narrator says that the evil dream world continued only because “we were sleeping”, but, because all things are renewed in Jesus, “now we are awake” and the evil world will be redeemed.

In a moment we lost our minds here

And dreamt the world was round

A million mile fall from grace

Thank god we missed the ground

This stanza parallels the fourth stanza that described a conversion experience though here we see a temporary slide back into trusting human wisdom rather than God’s. The narrator (and all the rest of us—“we”) wants to know answers scientifically, but in the reality of God’s kingdom, the world is neither flat nor “round”. By putting our faith in a scientific way of knowing, “we” miss the point (“a million mile fall from grace”). Thankfully, God offers us another chance; “we missed the ground”; we didn’t have to face the consequences of our sin.

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

With a nuclear fire of love in our hearts

Yeah, I can see it now Lord

Out beyond the breaking of waves

And the tribulation

It's a place and a home of ascended souls

Who swam out there in love!

Until this stanza the song has been a veiled message. Here the narrator breaks out of ambiguous poetry and clearly describes our final destiny in God’s kingdom. The “nuclear fire of love in our hearts” refers to God’s Spirit empowering us. With this power we transcend the evil of this world (“the breaking waves and the tribulation”) to “a place and a home of ascended souls”. This is a picture of God’s kingdom experienced now by transformed people who “swam out there in love”.

Run to the water and find me there

Burnt to the core but not broken

We'll cut through the madness

Of these streets below the moon

With a nuclear fire of love in our hearts

Rest easy baby, rest easy

And recognize it all as light and rainbows

Smashed to smithereens and be happy

Run to the water

This final stanza describes the power of God’s love as “nuclear” and how in it we “rest easy”. If we walk with God we walk in the “light”. The “rainbow” refers to the sign given to Noah as a covenant promise from God’s of peace with humanity. In God’s hands we are “smashed to smithereens” as we are transformed into perfect beings and so we are “happy”.

“Hey Jesus” by Indigo Girls

Strange Fire
Epic Records
1987




This song is an intimate conversation between the narrator and God. Some painful event has driven the narrator to ask God to intercede. As the conversation with God progresses, the narrator moves through the Five Stages of Grief : denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While the grieving may be directed at the tragedy, the other crisis in the song is the fracturing of the narrator’s relationship with God and this is a more likely target of the grieving stages.

Hey Jesus it's me

I don't usually talk to you

But my baby's gonna leave me

And there's something you must do

I am not your faithful servant

I hang around sometimes

With a bunch of your black sheep

But if you make my baby stay

I'll make it up to you

And that's a promise I will keep

Hey Jesus it's me

I'm the one who talked to you yesterday

And I asked you please please

For a favor but my baby's gone away

Went away anyway

And I don't really think its fair

You've got the power to make us all

Believe in you

And then we call you in our despair

And you don't come through

Hey Jesus it's me I'm sorry

I don't remember all I said

I had a few, no, too many

And they went straight to my head

And made me feel like I could argue with God

But you know it's easy for you

You got friends all over the world

You had the whole world waiting for your birth

But now I ain't got nobody

I don't know what my life's worth

I'm not gonna call on you any more

I'm sure you've got a million things to do

All I was trying to do

Was to get through to you

Get through to you

Because when I die and I get up to your doors

I don't even know if you're gonna

Let me in the place

How come I gotta die

To get a chance to talk to

You face to face?

Interpretation

Hey Jesus it's me

I don't usually talk to you

But my baby's gonna leave me

And there's something you must do

This stanza depicts a typical transactional approach to prayer. The narrator has a problem and wants God to fix it for her.

I am not your faithful servant

I hang around sometimes

With a bunch of your black sheep

But if you make my baby stay

I'll make it up to you

And that's a promise I will keep

Here the narrator describes her unworthiness (she is not a “faithful servant”) but proposes a bargain with God, do this for me and I’ll “make it up to you”. Presumably this means that the narrator will be a “faithful servant” and not “hang around with your black sheep”, the converse of her current practice.

Hey Jesus it's me

I'm the one who talked to you yesterday

And I asked you please please

For a favor but my baby's gone away

Went away anyway

In this stanza the narrator continues addressing God in a transactional prayer. The simple piece of information the narrator conveys is that God failed to answer her prayer. The tone in this stanza is one of victimization. The narrator wants God to feel sorry for letting her down. This stanza also represents the first stage in the grieving process: denial. Here it is manifested by disbelief that God failed.

And I don't really think its fair

You've got the power to make us all

Believe in you

And then we call you in our despair

And you don't come through

In this stanza the narrator realizes that God is not apologizing for letting her down and so her tone becomes angry. The narrator is mad at God for not answering her request and proceeds to explain why it’s not fair. She states a general feeling that God who has “the power to make us all believe in you” seems to never answer us in “our despair”. The second stage of the grieving process is displayed here: anger.

Hey Jesus it's me I'm sorry

I don't remember all I said

I had a few, no, too many

And they went straight to my head

And made me feel like I could argue with God

The tantrum from the previous stanza gives way to remorse. The narrator apologizes for being angry and arguing with God claiming she “had a few, no, too many” meaning she was drunk and not in her right mind. The alcohol made her “feel like [she] could argue with God”. This use of excuse is the third stage in the grieving process: bargaining. The narrator hopes she can convince God she was not in her right mind; then maybe God will reconsider.

But you know it's easy for you

You got friends all over the world

You had the whole world waiting for your birth

But now I ain't got nobody

I don't know what my life's worth

In this stanza the narrator arrives at the fourth stage of her grieving: depression. She slips into a morose outlook and states that, unlike God who has “friends all over the world”, she “ain’t got nobody”. Her melancholy, almost suicidal attitude is fully revealed in the final line, “I don’t know what my life’s worth.”

I'm not gonna call on you any more

I'm sure you've got a million things to do

All I was trying to do

Was to get through to you

Get through to you

In the final stage of grieving (acceptance), the narrator relegates herself to the fact that God is probably too busy (God’s “got a million things to do”) to help her out. There is a sadness expressed in this stanza since the acceptance going on here has to do with the narrator letting go of God (“I’m not gonna call on you any more”).

Because when I die and I get up to your doors

I don't even know if you're gonna

Let me in the place

How come I gotta die

To get a chance to talk to

You face to face?

This final stanza is the real heart-cry of the song. The narrator questions whether or not God will even “let [her] in the place” or heaven. The narrator wants God to let her in since she desires to speak to God “face to face”. Though she has gone through a grieving process (both as a result of her loss and her broken relationship with God) the narrator wants to know God intimately. The climax of the song comes in the final line “how come I gotta die to get a chance to talk to you face to face?” A tension exists here between the human idea of having to wait to die and go to heaven to be with God and the more lofty idea of dying to self now as a means of knowing God now. The narrator seems to be asking why she can’t just have God on a string; a divine candy machine that dispenses predictable goodies on demand. That she has to be transformed is asking too much.

“Disposable Heroes” by Metallica

Master of Puppets
Elektra
1984



This song describes the dehumanizing effect of war told from the soldier's perspective.

Bodies fill the fields I see, hungry heroes end

No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend

Running blind through killing fields, bred to kill them all

Victim of what said should be a servant `til I fall

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Barking of machinegun fire, does nothing to me now

Sounding of the clock that ticks, get used to it somehow

More a man, more stripes you wear, glory seeker trends

Bodies fill the fields I see the slaughter never ends

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Why, Am I dying?

Kill, have no fear

Lie, live off lying

Hell, Hell is here

I was born for dying

Life planned out before my birth, nothing could I say

Had no chance to see myself, molded day by day

Looking back I realize, nothing have I done

Left to die with only friend, alone I clench my gun

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Back to the front

Interpretation

Bodies fill the fields I see, hungry heroes end

No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend

Running blind through killing fields, bred to kill them all

Victim of what said should be a servant `til I fall

In this first stanza the narrator (the soldier) describes a grisly battlefield where carcasses fill his vision. The “heroes” of war lie dead as victims of the demands made on them such as, “be a servant ‘til I fall”. The soldier begins to question his blind devotion to his commanders as the scene of death and devastation fills his vision.

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

This stanza references the creation of man in the phrase, “made of clay”, implying both the natural and divine components that make up the soldier. The next line shows that what was of divine origin is gone in death leaving only “an empty shell”. The rest of the stanza describes his age (“twenty-one”), family situation (“only son”), and training (“bred to kill, not to care”). None of this is relevant to the people who require the soldier to fight; all they demand is that the soldier “do as we say”. But now the soldier is dead.

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Rather than dwelling on the dead soldier heroes, the commander’s attention shifts to the masses of remaining heroes who are ordered “back to the front”. The soldiers are not to think for themselves but rather obey mindlessly (“do what I say, when I say” is their mandate). Even their lives are in the hands of the commander (the soldiers “will die when I say”). The final line describes the condition of the soldier heroes. They are “cowards” in that they mechanically follow evil orders. They are “servants” of the commanders and they are “blind” to the evil they are participating in.

Barking of machinegun fire, does nothing to me now

Sounding of the clock that ticks, get used to it somehow

More a man, more stripes you wear, glory seeker trends

Bodies fill the fields I see the slaughter never ends

This stanza depicts a soldier home from war. There is no fighting going on, the “barking of machinegun fire” is in his imagination and dreams and can do “nothing to [him] now”. Traumatized by his time in war, the soldier experiences flashbacks. He struggles through each day (listening to the “clock that ticks”) and trying to “get used” to civilian life somehow. The soldier received honors as a fighter (the “stripes you wear”) and the commanders have tried to convince him that this makes him “more a man”. Instead, the soldier continues to be ripped apart by nightmares of the battlefield filled with dead; “the slaughter never ends”.

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Why, Am I dying?

Kill, have no fear

Lie, live off lying

Hell, Hell is here

I was born for dying

The soldier is angry now, questioning why he has to go to war to die, why he’s asked to “kill”, and why he has to “lie”. For all that he has been asked to do, the soldier is experiencing “hell” on earth. His life has no meaning since he was “born for dying”.

Life planned out before my birth, nothing could I say

Had no chance to see myself, molded day by day

Looking back I realize, nothing have I done

Left to die with only friend, alone I clench my gun

This stanza reaches the climax of the soldier’s breakdown. He laments that his life was determined “before [his] birth” without his input (“nothing could I say”). The soldier is highly fatalistic here saying that he could not have changed how his life has turned out since he was “molded day by day” by those wanting him to fight. In addition, he realizes that his life has been meaningless (“nothing have I done”). The final image is of the soldier preparing either for suicide or for murder. He grips his “only friend”, his gun ready to use it once again.

Soldier boy, made of clay

Now an empty shell

Twenty-one, only son

But he served us well

Bred to kill, not to care

Just do as we say

Finished here, Greeting Death

He's yours to take away

Back to the front

You will do what I say, when I say

Back to the front

You will die when I say, you must die

Back to the front

You coward, you servant, you blind man

Back to the front

“10,000 Years (Peace is Now)” by Live

Mental Jewelry
Radioactive Records
1991

This song is a cry for peace after all of human history has been a story of war, oppression, and injustice.

The world is burning down

Can't you smell the smoke in the air?

War, disease, and famine

This demon, she is everywhere

Poets and preachers and politicians

They've all had their say

And we got 10,000 years

Devoted to nothing

But tomorrow and yesterday

If all of the ignorance in the world

Passes a second ago

What would you say?

Who would you obey?

I am here to say that

Peace is now

Mr. President

I hereby pardon you of

All your crimes

For they are just as much mine

Selfishness and separation

Have led me

To believe that the

World is not my problem

The world is not my problem

I am the world, you are the world

If all of the ignorance in the world

Passes a second ago

What would you say?

Who would you obey?

I am here to say that

Peace is now

Interpretation

The world is burning down

Can't you smell the smoke in the air?

War, disease, and famine

This demon, she is everywhere

The opening stanza sets the stage for the song. It evokes an image of a burning building, riot, or war. The line, “war, disease, and famine” continues this dismal image. The singer attributes these evils to a “demon” who is everywhere. This “demon” is described as a female possibly referencing the idea (a remnant of a patriarchal world) that Eve is responsible for evil coming into the world

Poets and preachers and politicians

They've all had their say

And we got 10,000 years

Devoted to nothing

But tomorrow and yesterday

This stanza describes the failure of three groups in dealing with evil in the world. “Poets” have glorified violence and war throughout history in their literature, music, and other art forms. “Preachers” have “had their say” in that there has been numerous opportunities for religious leaders to speak out against nationalized violence and war and have remained silent. Likewise, “politicians” have failed to make use of their power to bring about peace and instead increased worldwide violence and war. As a whole, these groups have given up on peace and instead focus on keeping people’s minds on the past (“yesterday”—angry about past wrongs or preoccupied with the good old days) and the future (“tomorrow”—anxious for personal gain).

If all of the ignorance in the world

Passes a second ago

What would you say?

Who would you obey?

I am here to say that

A question is put to us in this stanza. If the thoughts and actions that have led us to this place of “war, disease, and famine” went away, would we be able to open our eyes and act to make peace a reality? The singer answers that question with a battle cry in the upcoming chorus.

Peace is now

“Peace is now” is not an observation about the current state of things but instead a demand that we create it now.

Mr. President

I hereby pardon you of

All your crimes

For they are just as much mine

In this stanza the narrator equates the sins of the president (regarding the three evils in the first stanza, “war, disease, and famine”) with his own. This is an important distinction to normal protest songs. The narrator is not calling down government leaders as ignorant elitists that don’t represent the populace. Instead the narrator accepts that he is just as culpable for the evils existing in the world. Leaders are only in power as long as the populace wills them to be. Because of this, the narrator asserts that any “crimes” committed by his government are “just as much” his.

Selfishness and separation

Have led me

To believe that the

World is not my problem

The world is not my problem

I am the world, you are the world

The singer expands on the thought from the previous stanza. “Selfishness and separation” are the conditions that have “led” him to insulate himself from the pervasive evil around him. He has lived as if his neighbor’s welfare is not his concern (“the world is not my problem”). The stanza ends by rejecting that notion by saying that we are interconnected; “I am the world” and “you are the world”.

If all of the ignorance in the world

Passes a second ago

What would you say?

Who would you obey?

I am here to say that

Peace is now