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I think Bang Bang encompasses the song's meaning the best, wouldn't change it.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable Buzzfeed article that uses "Green Day encourages mass shooting" clickbait bullshit. Because that's all Buzzfeed is good for.

Bang Bang Youtube video has over 1,000,000 views !

These are so awesome from when Billie was St Jimmy on Broadway:

TL; DR WTF?

Mom said it was too punk for her lmao

I don't know if this has been talked about yet, but I like this song's lyrics as a continuation of Having A Blast. Billie's focus with the gun issue seems to fall to the psychosis-- the hero complex of the people committing heinous gun crimes. He wrote from the perspective of the shooter (I know it was a bomb, but I digress) with Having A Blast. In Bang Bang he's a removed narrator addressing the character from Having A Blast using that biting sarcasm and irony that he does so well to paint the true insanity and futility of mass shooters. I don't know if he even thought of Having A Blast while writing Bang Bang, but the echoes speak to his focus on the issue

Case in point (I stole this from green-day-bread)

There were some lines in the song that made me think directly of Adam Lanza. Daddy's Little Psycho and Mommy's little soldier. Adams father left years ago because he could not deal with Adam's problems or Adam's mother. Adam's mother was a prepper, which is a movement of people that think they need to prepare for a catastrophe. They stock pile food, arm themselves, learn to shoot, etc. Adam's mother taught him how to shoot to prepare him. Also, the I want to dance like I'm on the video. Before the Sandy Hook shooting, Adam used to go to the local movie theater, which has a small arcade. He used ot meet a friend there and they used to use this machine where you do dances to the video. A few months before the shooting, something happened with the friendship and Adam stopped going. I am guessing that it is based on certain circumstances around several mass shooters.

If Tre had written Bang Bang the song wouldn't have been about mass shootings etc... It would have been about a very different type of bang bang

This moment at 3:48 when they transion to Basket Case and you can see happiness on Tre's and Billie's face and how proud they are will forever be my favorite Green Day moment.

My take was always that Billie wanted to dissociate pop-punk from punk, and make clear that while 'pop-punk' has a melody, it doesn't mean it's pop. I never saw any drastic change coming in the music. Bang Bang has been an excellent step on the way to accomplishing this: it's darker, it's harder, it's much more punky - but it's still 110% recognisably Green Day.

There is also the argument that social media users tend to latch onto any news that is deemed righteous or good - and thus become "heroes of the hour". I remember Ben Weasel saying in a podcast that he unfriends anyone with the rainbow flag filter saying that the "knee-jerk" need for people to proclaim their righteousness puts him off. Ofc people have reasons for why they do things and it would be wrong to assume. But he does have a point. I know people who proclaim their righteousness all the time and get all the likes but do nothing irl. People want short-term fame over anything. Its a violent culture indeed. There is a lack of a personal connection to anything.. but there is a desperation for fame. Its like you can type #PrayforTurkey but not actually pray for Turkey and still get tons of likes and approval.

So excited our boys are back!! And and far as Bang Bang is concerned....... 👏👏🔥🔥🔥🔥

I agree! Some over zealous "patriots" still are still up in arms about American Idiot...that's over a decade of being butthurt I feel like Green Day has found the best way to make morons easily detectable. But yeah my local stations dont play it either. These same stations censor Ride by 21 Pilots because it says the word bullet.

A buddy of mine heard Bang Bang 4 times on the radio Thursday. Not surprising considering Baltimore/DC market has several big rock & alternative stations. I heard Bang Bang on the radio for the first time myself today (98 Rock Baltimore). It appears to be getting more playtime than any of the trilogy singles.

I hate the trend to call celebrities mom or dad. It's totally creepy. Everyone from South America calls Lana Del Rey mom on Instagram...like wtf? Tre made a joke once saying "your new dad" (or something like that) so now everyone calls him dad on his Instagram which is funny, but like... Enough

Sometimes you might kinda feel forced to do such things as holding hands or saying sweet things or even hugging (makes me think of Redundant actually). He's just saying he sincerely wants to, there's no voice in his head telling him what to do and he's doing it simply because his heart and nothing else is forcing him to. It's not something that should be taken for granted, I always get shivers on that line since it's something I can actually relate to. I love When It's Time.

I have to agree with you. Just because someone came first, doesn't mean they were the major influence. I actually heard of the Buzzcocks because of Green Day. I call it reverse influence. There is often times when a band popularizes a genre and then people will discover the bands that influenced them.

I get the invention argument, as nothing can possibly come after it isn't created but every pop punk band in the early 2000s wave and the recent new-wave have had a sound that directly descends from Dookie, that's the album everyone has, that is the one that drew people in from around the world. The original post focused on popularity, I just can't get past the fact that millions more people have heard Green Day's pop punk music compared to the Buzzcocks, and they did it at a time when pop punk was certainly not that popular

Have you guys tried singing along the Hurrah - Bang Bang!, Hurrah -Bang Bang! While singing both parts? Me and my sister did that and we couldn't stop laughing. We speed up both parts and it ends up sounding hilarious. Totally the way I'm gonna sing it at a concert! hahah

To whoever runs the @green-day-bread Tumblr: I fucking love you.

Okay. Before we go down the "All opinions are equal" route, I feel compelled to mention that there are, most definitely, opinions in this world that are based on false premises and/or are just plain rude and insulting and not deserving of respect. For instance, someone calling another person ugly is entirely a subjective evaluation on that person's looks. It is an opinion, but it's a rather shit one that most people would agree should not be voiced out of common human decency. And surely you would agree that certain statements like "All black people are lazy and looking for handouts" or "all women are bad drivers" are highly inflammatory, insulting opinions based on misinformation and bigotry and, as such, should not be considered valid or even respected. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, and I absolutely hate it when people try to use it as an argument for anything because, in all reality, all opinions are *not* necessarily equal, and some things do deserve to be called out. As for your opinion on this particular issue, while obviously not in the same league as the aforementioned examples, I still feel that what you said was both insulting and degrading to the other members of the band by downplaying their contributions as insignificant. I have read your post many times, and you did not say that you don't care for Mike and Jason's voices (which would be a valid enough opinion, even if others feel differently). You said that Billie Joe is highly talented, and, because of that, anyone else trying to sing lead is a waste (If you meant to say something else, that intent was not clear in your postings). So I provided an example of an even more talented singer who has also opted to take a backseat on vocals on multiple occasions. And you may feel that those songs are wastes too, but plenty of other people love them, so how can they be wastes? My friend's fave Queen song of all time is '39, which is sung by Brian (and while it's not my #1, I still agree that it's a fantastic song), and there's certainly enough people on here who enjoy Mike's voice and singing style too. It just seems a tad presumptuous to me to insist that because you personally don't like something, it has no value at all. Not to mention the fact that it was Billie's own choice to not sing lead in those instances. It is not as if he's being pushed to the side or hidden in the shadows. He could've insisted on singing lead in those songs; he did not. Perhaps because he also felt that those particular tracks (or movements) were better served by a different singing style than his own. I'm sure the idea of him wasting his own talent by not singing did not remotely occur to him in those moments. And, yes, one *can* make the claim that American Idiot would not have happened if it weren't for Mike because, as I already said in my last post, American Idiot would not exist if Green Day did not exist. And Green Day would not exist without Mike Dirnt, regardless of what his particular contributions to AI were. For that matter, I could also claim that American Idiot would not exist without Tre either, since I think we can all agree that Green Day wouldn't have lasted as long as they did with Kiffmeyer still in the group. And, finally, I am curious why you feel I personally insulted you in my post. I did not write anything that specifically attacked you and certainly did not write anything that could be construed as an insult to your person, though you ironically seem to feel the need to make things personal by calling me childish and implying that I can't read. I did say it would be ludicrous to suggest that Brian, Roger, and John's contributions to Queen were wastes of time just because they are not Freddie Mercury (and I maintain that this is true, even for Green Day. Billie Joe is integral, but so is the rest of the group). I'm sure if I had said instead that "having someone else replace Billie Joe on vocals is ludicrous" you would not be disagreeing with me or getting defensive on behalf of the Sacred Nature of Opinions. So why should making a case for all three band members (or four, with Jason) to be treated with equal respect be so incendiary for you to take offense at it? Anyway, I don't have anything else to say on this subject that hasn't been said already, so consider the discussion closed. In other news, I've officially lost track of how many times I've listened to "Bang Bang".

Around the same time as our right to take full sized shampoo bottles on airplanes.

The dad thing can be funny or creepy. Creepy if the person never acknowledges it but the fans continue to call him it. Funny if the person goes along with it because they are a middle-aged dad and embrace it. For example, Mark Hoppus always has his Twitter name as some variation of dad. When Bored to Death came out, it was 'Bored to Dadth', atm its 'Pokedad Go'...

in regards to the vinyl pre-order and the download, I never even checked my e-mail. As soon as my order went through the confirmation page had a link to the download and that's what I used. I have yet to receive my email about the idiot club membership though

Well we'll have to hear the rest of the album first but it's a good start to his mission

Does anyone else cringe when they read the comments on Billie's Instagram photos? Some of them (namely the ones referring to him as "daddy") are just downright embarrassing.

Let me take back anything critical I said about this. I finally was able to blast it properly and all my doubt is gone. The raw sound is all I ever wanted from them and the lyrics surely improved too. And it's good to hear them changing up the song structure a bit as well.

Don't the backing vocals scream war on the background right after holy?

It was played twice on Today FM (in Ireland) on Thursday that I heard but I never listen to the radio so I have no idea if it's been on since or if it's been playing on other stations. Fergal D'Arcy the DJ who premiered it on Today FM thinks it's great and teased a few seconds of it about half an hour before playing it to "let you know what you're in for". Before playing it in full he talked about the excitement of when a band you have been following for many years finally releases new material and noted that it had been the moment Green Day fans had been waiting years for. Afterwards he commented how he's sure it will be huge and we wouldn't have been disappointed.

I adore this effect. It repeatedly blew me away the first few times I heard it. However... This. The whole song you can barely make out the bass. Vocals seem a bit buried in the mix as well, though not as much as the bass.

I agree. I think the lyrics are some of the best Billie has ever written. It is just an outstanding song overall.

Ha! Poor Jason.

I'm struggling to think of a Green Day song with better sounding drums. A good drum tone was something I was really hoping for from this song, but I wasn't expecting it because, in my opinion, it's been the thing most lacking on their past albums. I've been very pleasantly surprised.

I woke up with Bang Bang stucked in my head, I think it's a very good sign

Nah, Buzzcocks are the primary influence on it overall having invented it, Green Day may have revitalised it but any pop-punk band owes Buzzcocks on some level and Singles Going Steady is generally regarded as the blueprint of pop punk. As to making it more mainstream I'd agree, though Buzzcocks never having much label support would have at least some input to that.

some gifs i made from the Emirates Stadium show

A similar thing happened with Pumped Up Kicks. Since Billie Joe talked about the song's meaning from the start with that interview in Rolling Stone, I doubt it'll be that big of a deal.

Was thinking about this myself. Celebrity Martyr is the best thing I could think of too. Daddy's Little Psycho seems a bit much, but I'd take either over 'Bang Bang'

I feel like this might be an unnecessary question to ask but what would you guys rename bang bang if you could? or would you just keep it the same name? I think if it was called celebrity martyr or semi automatic lonely boy thatd be a better name.

Yeah I wouldn't subject myself to that.😌

I don't feel guilty. They'll always have a special place in my heart. I don't have to listen to their noise to love them. Same goes for other bands I used to listen to intensively.

^^ You do realise that was intentional, to give the song that ¡Bang! start effect and kick you in the face

It's not my favorite line either. I even think the two could be switched... Daddy's little soldier and mommy's little psycho.... But, it does tie in the reference of the parents involvement/lack thereof of these psycho kids... Remember the Newtown school shooting. His mom had a stash of guns which he used to kill her and I believe his dad was sort of out of the family picture? It feels strange to recall these past events....eeesh

This needs to be the opening song on the tour. I can just picture the radio part as the lights are off, and Mike and Tre and Jason start playing the intro, and when it kicks in Billie runs out with a mic and sings the song without his guitar on (which he usually does for songs this fast). Could be a big explosion and stuff too

Oh trust me, you're not the only one. Sure, it's not exactly what I expected in terms of structure but who needs a chorus when there is just so much melodic craziness packed into such a short time... and fuck.. the drum solo, yet another thing I somehow haven't mentioned yet. Fucking awesome. I hope that little solo is extended live.

Just caught my sister singing 'I wanna be a celebrity martyr'. She says she still hasn't decided whether she likes it or not, but it's stuck in her head which can only be good!

YES I'm so excited about this song. It's absolutely perfect. It's going to go to #1 and this album is going to be their next AI, I can feel it, the song is THAT GOOD. I love the guitar tones, that beautiful wall of crusty goodness! Billie Joe's singing is at his very best and his voice sounds powerful and natural in the production. ! Tre's drumming and Mike's bass work are superb. The construction of the song is perfection, with all the creative breakdowns and that incredible bridge in the harmonic minor. The back up "Hey's" were perfect in because they were imperfect. It's a quintessential kick ass Green Day song, with every element that makes them the best band out there: lyrics, music, instruments, singing, song arrangement, everything!