Leaderboard

As mentioned it's like the word comet and the word bus (his real name being Aaron Elliott - Cometbus isn't a real surname and just comes from the name of his zine Cometbus, which is fully titled 'Ride the Wohl Whip Cometbus', a title made up by a guy he knew which he apparently has no idea of the meaning of). But it's funny you ask that because there was a story Aaron told once about how when he was a roadie for Green Day in their early days they made some buttons that said "Green Day" and "Cometbus" on them (but because they were small it was on two lines like "Green/Day" "Come/tbus") and gave a load of them out to the crowd at a show. Then afterwards he heard a ridiculous rumour that at Green Day's show the band and their roadie had given girls they wanted to sleep with buttons that said "come to the bus". He couldn't work out why anyone would think that, until he realised that the way it was written on the button it kind of looked like "come to bus" . You just totally reminded me of it.

I love Too Dumb To Die too. The bit at the end of the second chorus where it all falls apart and then kicks back in is brilliant.

i suddenly lead a "Billie Joe Armstrong's Frilly Shirts Appreciation Life" it takes some real talent to make a frilly shirt look even halfway decent.

Some of my shots from Webster Hall

Unpopular opinion, just because it is pop doesn't mean it is bad. Just because it is punk, doesn't mean it is good

He only meant he disliked the phrase pop punk Still Breathing sounded shockingly pop the first time I heard it. Although it sounds more "normal" to me now I'm used to it I like that they did something different by going for such a full on pop sound. There's also something I like about the very personal/serious lyrics being in the most modern pop sounding song they've done. Dark lyrics contrasted with a catchy pop punk sound has always been their thing but with this song they did the contrast in a new way.

I love Too Dumb To Die! Might be my second favourite on RevRad. I didn't like the intro at first but it's grown on me and I just love that verse about his dad. Still Breathing isn't Billie's most complex lyrical venture, but I don't really feel it's cliched or impersonal. Some of the lines can come across as cliches depending on how you look at it, but the way he sings it, gradually building up to him screaming the chorus, rescues them for me. As well as relating to his own life I think the comparisons to others (soldier, single mother, junkie, etc) reflect well what he said about "how we're all intertwined". When it was released and everyone was inspired to share their personal struggles with strangers around the world, I really felt that. All the stories were different and the people sharing them were all totally different people, but it showed that as he said, we are all intertwined. I may well be biased because it hit me so hard on a personal level, but "my head's above the rain and roses / making my way to you" are definitely my favourite lines from the album.

I don't know how to explain it properly, but the Trilogy sort of baffles me for reasons other than "It's bad". Honestly, a lot of the songs are super catchy and unique. However, the songs just don't FEEL like Green Day. I don't know how else to put it. Even the better songs like Brutal Love and Lazy Bones are GREAT, but they don't even feel like a Green Day song. In contrast, take "Youngblood." Poppy just like the Trilogy, but it bleeds Green Day. Maybe it's the guitars or vocals...idk. The Trilogy just felt...off. Not bad, but off.

One of the few pics i can find from the Palladium show the other night. Anyone know of any galleries with more? (seriously i just cannot get enough of that shirt.)

Unpopular Opinion: I am SO TIRED of that tweet being brought up.

I also find some of the lines in Still Breathing a bit too cheap/cliched, however, I absolutely love "I'm still breathing on my own - My head's above the rain and roses" and also "Are you scared to death to live?", that line hit me hard. The song really grew on me, I think I started liking it a lot only after I heard Billie singing it live (and just through a recording, can't imagine now how powerful it can be when you actually see them perform it).

I LOVE the way Billie says "Not every Sunday can be Easter" it gives me chills each time.

His real name is Aaron Elliot , but Cometbus is pronounced "Comet-Bus" If you like his lyrics, I suggest checking out his band Cleveland Bound Death Sentence! And Crimpshrine's a classic, although Jeff Ott's vocals are an aquired taste

I like LOTAG too, I don't get the hate.

I realize that the sound of Still Breathing is similar to other pop-rock songs. But I don't agree that it's generic in any way. A Green Day song has never felt so emotional and personal before (except Somewhere Now and Forever Now—god, I love this album). Maybe looking at it objectively and just reading the lyrics I'd find it cliched. Maybe. But it's impossible for me to be objective about this song. Listening to it? Holy shit. There is such an indescribable amount of passion in how it is sung. There are moments throughout where it doesn't even sound like Billie because he's practically screaming it, and it's beautiful. As @Hermione said, the "I'm like a son that was raised without a father/I'm like a mother barely keeping it together" line is so raw and real. I'd add that "I've been running all my life just to find a home that's for the restless/and the truth that's in the message" is equally revealing, and "Are you scared to death to live?" really ties in well to Forever Now ("Standing at the edge of the world is giving me the chills...") I'm so emotionally wrapped up in this song that I couldn't possibly think of it as a typical rock ballad. When you take it a step beyond what it means to Billie and look at how it binds people who have been through all sorts of struggles and are proud to have come out on the other side, you find a pretty special song.

"I'm like a son that was raised without a father/I'm like a mother barely keeping it together" is literally describing his own family and childhood. I think it's one of the most brutally raw and personal lines he's ever written. I do kind of agree with the Troubled Times complaint though. It's not so much that he just says "we live in troubled times", but that afterwards there's this long gap with just an "ahh-ahh" before he repeats it which really emphasizes the fact that it's all he says

Usually when someone dies, at least here, at the funeral service, they will pile all the flowers someone sent on top of the casket before it is buried. So basically that line means he is not dead. His head is above the rain and roses, not below them

I have to disagree on this line. I love Still Breathing, but this line is just so personal to Billie that I think it works so well. His mother pretty much checked out after his fathers death and I look at that line as a real, personal reference to himself.

Still Breathing is disappointing, I was expecting much more from the rehab song. I get why people say it's relatable, okay, but this doesn't mean it's well written. It's not like I was expecting overly-complicated lines or some oscure Rimbaud reference by the way, Bj has written excellent songs without needing any of that. I'm like a soldier coming home for the first time I'm like a mother barely keeping it together In my opinion those lines are terribly cheap, a cheap wink. A song isn't automatically good just because of the theme and what it means for the author and the listeners. Same thing for Troubled Times, falsely deep lyrics with an empty chorus: We. Live. In. Troubled. Times.

lol that's one of the Trilogy's standouts for me, and I love Mike's line. Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion While on the topic of the Trilogy, I really love Drama Queen. I don't know if that's unpopular here, but elsewhere on the internet the only commentary I see on the song is dudebros being pussies about the reference to bleeding

Have lyrics from it tattooed, so yeah, I feel this just a bit

the reason that there's a drought at the fountain of youth, is because billie joe used up all the non-aging magic.

Oh my God, at first I thought the picture with the red shirt was from the one time he wore it in the AI era but apparently it's from yesterday! Does he ever age

Now he needs to wear one in Vegas for us and @lizziebix

Disagree there as I don't find it blandly pop. I find it interestingly pop . It's the most full on pop they've done so it feels like something new from them.

@Hermione In the videoed Huff Post interview he was asked about it too, and he was like "Oh! That was just a thing I tweeted that people keep talking about for some reason" and made it seem totally ridiculous. Because it is.

He's even confirmed that's all he meant elaborating on it in Kerrang recently. Surely time for it to stop now

Here's a few more - I just had a look around on IG and tumblr: v I think that's all the photos I'm allowed to post today! Sorry mods if I've gone over my limit!

Couldn't agree more about EJN, 21st CB and Before The Lobotomy. Would add Viva La Gloria (Little Girl) to this list. I don't understand why they almost forgot about the existence of this album except KYE which is already actually kind of annoying. Billie's frustration about Trilogy is explainable but this 21st CB disregard is strange.

Me too! That and "you'll be a scab not a martyr." That song deserves way more love. It's my favorite of the more upbeat ones I think.

Bus, as in the vehicle Nothing wrong with wanting clarification! There's nothing worse than saying someone's name wrong.

Youngblood is one of my least favorite tracks ever. It sounds too repetitive for me and i'm not just talking about the lyrics but the melody as well. It's a shame because I love that it's about 80.

I'm amazed to see how "Too Dumb Too Die" doesn't seem to be appreciated that much, I immediately fell in love with that song and it is actually one of my favorite on Revrad.

I'd utterly love to hear Before The Lobotomy live.

@basketcase4933 huh what? Just too blinded by Billie and his frilly shirt to see/read anything else.

Exactly. There's actually a lot of good pop bands out there, they just automatically get pushed into the stereotype world with other undesirable pop artists as soon as anyone finds out their genre. And as much as I love punk music, it's not always good haha

I disagree. I think the difference between a good song and a bad song is EXACTLY the fact whether you can feel that it means something to the writer and to the audience or not. At least that's my way of listening to music. Only if I can relate to the song, only if I can feel a meaning behind it which is important to the writer, and, in the best case, for me too, I can love a song. And Still Breathing offers all of that, it feels like this song was written about me, although I have a completely different past. The way he describes his feelings, which might be similar to the feelings of a junkie, a loser or a single mother or anyone else in a difficult situation, aren't clichés, they are just the truth. "As I walk out on the ledge, are you scared to death to live?" That's exactly the question you ask yourself after you've been through something as life-changing as that. And that's what I love about Billie's writing, he can use many metaphors in a great way and I love that, but sometimes he's just calling a spade a spade (can I say it like this? Looked this up in a dictionary ;p). There has never been a GD song that hit me so hard like Still Breathing did, I need some more years to find it out, but it has potential to become my favourite GD song. That might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm in the right thread for this, right? :-D

Agreed, like I said when it first came out a song of personal struggles doesn't have to be all dramatic and full of recovery clichés, as far as punk songs in the same vein Stiff Little Fingers did a much better one two years ago:

Little Girl is one of my all time favorite songs. I'd LOVE to hear it live. It's so powerful and actually fits very well with the sound of RevRad.

I was just about to ask how did he come up with the name Cometbus (I knew his real surname is Elliott). The story about the buttons is hilarios!

^the first one is just beautiful.

I get that, but in Troubled Times simplicity has degenerated into banality imo. I mean if you want to make a social commentary about terroristic attacks the worst thing you could do is saying that history is repeated when it's not learned, it's as unoriginal as you can be. Yeah the music is ok, I think I'll search for a cover in Korean just to listen to the instrumental part without being distracted by the lyrics.

Roses stand flowers on a grave. Beat me to it!

I love Still Breathing, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Billie's personal feelings/story regarding it. For me, it's just a song that brought up some very strong feelings and emotions during the first listen and all the times that followed and I immediately fell in love with it, even before I knew all the lyrics and their meaning. I think you can feel how emotional the song is to the band (regardless of the story behind it) and I can identify very well with thr "I'm still breathing on my own despite all the shit that happened in my life" theme, that's why I love it so much.

I agree about Still Breathing. He uses way too many cliches for it to feel personal. It has so many lines I've heard before that it feels prefabricated, like dozens of popsongs that are written this way. I think many fans feel so connected to it because we know the story and read all the recent heartwrenching interviews. Many people were touched by it and that might have helped them relate to the song. I wonder how relatable and meaningful it is for people who aren't into Green Day the way we are. Regardless, I still like SB. I have to disagree a little on Troubled Times. The lyrics sounded falsely deep to me at first but now I think the power of this song is in its simplicity. I'm still like "oh dear" at some of the lines of this song but I actually don't mine the line "we live in trouble times" - I love how abruptly the chorus ends and goes into the instrumental. I just like the music on this song a lot. Really? That line just sounds weird to me It's not a bad song in fact- I like the melody but I've never got over how cringy the chorus is. Drama Queen is great. It is meant to weird you out a little I think. And yeah, the bleeding line took some getting used to - it's grown on me since I realized it's ambiguous so not actually about periods. Frankly, it's kind of funny how many times we've discussed this line on here considering that Red Tide is all about periods and no one seems to mind.

Me too. And someone else said, Little Girl would be awesome as well. I'd enjoy LOTAG, that might fit into unpopular opinions. They've already played two shows sober and seemed to be having fun doing so, so I think there's a fair chance FBHT aren't dead. Judging from videos I watched, it wasn't anyhow awkward. I liked watching their show withought having to worry someone would get sick.

i guess you're right about them being an acquired taste, I got "sound of a new world being born" when I was in 7th grade but I didn't really appreciate it until 9th or 10th, that's when I started listening to it a lot, I love that CD. I like his vocals better in crimpshrine than in fifteen though haha

I wish they played EJN, it's such a badass song overall. I'd prefer it over know Know Your Enemy actually.