Cigarettes & Valentines — the one and only thread

[nowshesgone]

25 minutes ago, giozzam said:

What do you mean? I'd be interested in hearing more about your opinion on this

IIRC rob at the time was working on different projects and was too busy to help out on 21CB, which is why Butch ended up getting hired to produce the album+ those covers

[Lenny]

On 11/3/2024 at 9:59 AM, giozzam said:

What do you mean? I'd be interested in hearing more about your opinion on this

Rob was CCO at Warner at the time of 21cb. GD required a full time producer when working on 21cb. 
 

There was also something that happened and they drifted apart around that time. I think they made up before the Trilogy iirc. 

[Insomniac186]

On 11/4/2024 at 4:22 PM, Lenny said:

Rob was CCO at Warner at the time of 21cb. GD required a full time producer when working on 21cb. 
 

There was also something that happened and they drifted apart around that time. I think they made up before the Trilogy iirc. 

Aside from his duties at Warner Bros., Cavallo was working on MCR and Paramore albums around the time GD would have been working on 21CBD. From what I remember reading back then, either Cavallo turned the band down either because he was too busy or refused to accommodate them, which is what led to him and the band having a falling out.

On 11/3/2024 at 7:27 AM, nowshesgone said:

IIRC rob at the time was working on different projects and was too busy to help out on 21CB, which is why Butch ended up getting hired to produce the album+ those covers

Butch Vig did not produce the cover songs, the band has the producer credits. They were likely recorded at Studio 880/Jingletown before working on 21CBD began.

[Dysfunco]

What songs that was intended for the scrapped album do you think eventually made it's way to the final American Idiot album anyway (perhaps a few songs was brought back, and slighlty reworked, sometime during the process) as well as the demo CD with previously unheard songs?

Personally, I feel that Everyone's Breaking Down is the oldest recording on the demo CD. That's primarily because of the way he sings and emphasizes words, which really sounds unmistakably "Warning-esque" for someone like me, who just adores the whole let's say 1999-2001 era. My bet is it's recorded sometime 2002, perhaps even during the first half.

Other than that, I more and more feel that Novacaine could've been something that already was on the 2002 batch of songs presented for Rob and that other guy. Extraordinary Girl and maybe even She's a Rebel, although I feel more uncertain about that (well, the former is pure speculation too of course).

Then of course demos can have been recorded numerous times over the course of a longer time span. A demo chosen for the AI demo can have existed in a earlier recording as well, but simply wasn't the one they picked here for whatever reasons.

Lowlife I feel can likely have emerged sometime early 2003 when they've scrapped the other material and tried to come up with new, maybe bit more ambitious, song ideas.

And since they didn't necessarily have any plans on bringing back Cluster Bomb from the Warning sessions at this point in time, they included some similar sounding melodies and ideas from that song. Eventually, Cluster Bomb found it's way back from the dead obviously (perhaps even very late, considering it seems to be in Ocean Way -- in other words: 2004 -- he's changing the lyrics to fit the AI story), Lowlife was scrapped sometime along the way and the verse melody found it's way into Jesus of Surburbia -- a song I also suspect might have been finishedmuch  later in the process than one first might expect. In it's final form, that is -- it could very well have been included in it's original shorter form (like the demo), long prior to that.

 

Edited November 11 by Dysfunco

[25thCenturyRevolution]

Hi everyone! Long time lurker. Feels like this fits here:
Ever since the 20th anniversary came out I have been trying to put together a timeline of the recording of American Idiot and the process that it went through prior with Cigarettes and Valentines. That is until I started reading lyrics back, quite literally with that in mind.

One connection that emerged was a connection between one of the most famous lyrics that they have written: "I'm the son of rage and love, The Jesus of Suburbia." How could this connect to Cigarettes & Valentines you might ask? Think of it literally, with "rage" being the rough, rebellious side represented by "cigarettes", and "love," the sweeter, sentimental side represented by valentines. In art, cigarettes often symbolize defiance or a kind of gritty realism in art, after I did a bit of digging finding this article.

Another connection was the first part of that lyric "I'm the son..." which could literally represent American Idiot emerging as the "son" of Cigarettes and Valentines after the creative process. The way that I interpreted it is that American Idiot is the “offspring” of what Cigarettes and Valentines would have been. What better way to start a fresh slate than to continue the start or introduction of the first part of the album by declaring this?

We know for a fact that the band's feelings of frustration, disillusionment were carried from Cigarettes & Valentines to American Idiot, so maybe this could fit? This could be a big stretch but I'm open to hearing other interpretations of this in the same vein.

[Dysfunco]

On 11/11/2024 at 6:53 PM, 25thCenturyRevolution said:

One connection that emerged was a connection between one of the most famous lyrics that they have written: "I'm the son of rage and love, The Jesus of Suburbia." How could this connect to Cigarettes & Valentines you might ask? Think of it literally, with "rage" being the rough, rebellious side represented by "cigarettes", and "love," the sweeter, sentimental side represented by valentines. In art, cigarettes often symbolize defiance or a kind of gritty realism in art, after I did a bit of digging finding this article.

Yeah, there could potentially be something to this. To quote myself from a previous post in this thread:

On 10/28/2024 at 4:55 PM, Dysfunco said:

I've thought about this earlier too. That it perhaps already was a concept album of sorts (just not an opera) at an early stage, with some kind of "Light and dark" theme to it -- hence the title Cigarettes & Valentine with the former standing for the dark/bad side and the latter for the light/good. Although it most certainly has nothing to do with this, there's almost a comical amount of songs having either "cigarettes" or "valentines" in the lyrics in one form or another. Or simply just fitting the idea.

 

[PleasedToMeetMe]

I don’t think there was any theme to the album, they’ve been pretty forward on the fact that Cigarettes & Valentines was just a solid power pop punk album, likely taking what they had been doing with Warning and mixing it with some classic high energy Green Day.  It was good, but not “global phenomenon” good, which is what they needed at the time.  The album was basically a rehash of what they had already done in the past, so of course the “American Idiot” concept won in the end. As people have been saying, Cigarettes and Valentines truly is the missing link between Warning era Green Day and American Idiot Green Day, and I think that’s whats so appealing about it. What COULD have been.

[Reverend Strychnine Twitch]

6 hours ago, PleasedToMeetMe said:

I don’t think there was any theme to the album, they’ve been pretty forward on the fact that Cigarettes & Valentines was just a solid power pop punk album, likely taking what they had been doing with Warning and mixing it with some classic high energy Green Day.  It was good, but not “global phenomenon” good, which is what they needed at the time.  The album was basically a rehash of what they had already done in the past, so of course the “American Idiot” concept won in the end. As people have been saying, Cigarettes and Valentines truly is the missing link between Warning era Green Day and American Idiot Green Day, and I think that’s whats so appealing about it. What COULD have been.

This 👍

[Dysfunco]

On 11/15/2024 at 3:11 AM, PleasedToMeetMe said:

I don’t think there was any theme to the album, they’ve been pretty forward on the fact that Cigarettes & Valentines was just a solid power pop punk album, likely taking what they had been doing with Warning and mixing it with some classic high energy Green Day.  It was good, but not “global phenomenon” good, which is what they needed at the time.  The album was basically a rehash of what they had already done in the past, so of course the “American Idiot” concept won in the end. As people have been saying, Cigarettes and Valentines truly is the missing link between Warning era Green Day and American Idiot Green Day, and I think that’s whats so appealing about it. What COULD have been.

Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that it couldn't have had a underlying theme going through it. But yes, likely it did not.

I'm pretty sure I'd have loved it if songs like Everyones Breaking Down, Shoplifter and The Pedestrian is the style there were going for, though. I personally have a soft spot for that Green Day era, especially Billies vocals.

Edited November 16 by Dysfunco

[Cris.]

On 10/27/2024 at 12:57 PM, Dysfunco said:

The only other theory I can think of is that it actually DID disappear after the meeting. But rather than stolen or disappearing without the band knowing, it was a delibirate - sort of "punky" - move by Billie because he got so pissed. Since the material got "dissed", he deleted it so the label would't have access to it, and only kept either demos, a CD, or a hard drive of C&V somewhere himself. 

This is actually the only theory I've read about the tapes having disappeared (in one way or another) that I'm willing to believe. I can kind of see that happening, and would explain why they have never released a studio version of C&V even if there is a live version out there. If this is what happened, then I can also imagine that the "stolen tapes" story was probably also made up to hype the fans about it, so they would really want to listen to it, thus creating a market for those tapes that the label wouldn't "push" and that now they have no way of releasing and profiting from. Being indeed a very punky move. If that's what they did, I see you guys, and you are little punk geniuses.

On 10/30/2024 at 11:21 PM, frankoz said:

I got a strong feeling C&V was never lost, but rather reworked into American Idiot. Probably they were not satisfied with the outcome, those Warning-esque "Demos" seem to be fully produced songs, even if rather b-side-ish, perhaps self-produced but unsatisfied themselves.  So then they called in Cavallo to help out.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, that American Idiot alt version is the missing link between Warning and American Idiot (the albums, not the songs).