Trilogy Discussion

[The_real_st_jimmy]

20 hours ago, Jacob Ives said:

All of the trilogy is gold, people just hate it cause it's cool. It's always the same "the lyrics are trash"

I know right? I actually really enjoy listening to the trilogy! Sure, it may not be like American Idiot but it sounds good!

[The Bellie]

19 hours ago, MysticManiac said:

X-Kid ≤ Still Breathing

I corrected it for you  (you'll notice I put ≤ and not < I haven't forgot all about maths yet!).

X-Kid is a great song, as Still Breathing is like a holy song to me. The irony is that when I listened to it the first times it kept cutting my breath with emotion. 

My thought is that there are many great songs in the Trilogy. They are different from any other stuff Green Day has done. I personally had my own necessary time to get comfortable with all its content, more because I had never heard something alike before and around me everyone was just like "wtf?" so it's more social or educational reason. So I progressively let these albums, notably Dos, come to me during my Green Day journey, and within a few months after discovering the band, singing along with Makeout Party or Wow! That's Loud are my most probable guilty pleasure 

[Christian's Inferno!]

3 hours ago, Kuromignonne said:

I corrected it for you  (you'll notice I put ≤ and not < I haven't forgot all about maths yet!).

X-Kid is a great song, as Still Breathing is like a holy song to me. The irony is that when I listened to it the first times it kept cutting my breath with emotion. 

My thought is that there are many great songs in the Trilogy. They are different from any other stuff Green Day has done. I personally had my own necessary time to get comfortable with all its content, more because I had never heard something alike before and around me everyone was just like "wtf?" so it's more social or educational reason. So I progressively let these albums, notably Dos, come to me during my Green Day journey, and within a few months after discovering the band, singing along with Makeout Party or Wow! That's Loud are my most probable guilty pleasure 

I just love the harmonies during the chorus of X-Kid, especially the last one. And to me, it seems like a unique song that doesn't really sound/remind me of any other GD song. Still Breathing is still a great song but it would probably be quite low in my ranking of songs on RevRad. It tries to be a deep and meaningful song about how he's still breathing but it doesn't seem as emotional as a song like WMUWSE, which I think it's kind of trying to emulate. And I mean, SB wasn't exactly overplayed but even so, I am getting a little bored of it but it was fine as a single, it did pretty well and I know a lot of people connect to it a lot.

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

18 hours ago, RougeRogue said:

Honestly? Yeah I agree with that.

 

I have the reverse relationship with it in that when I first listened to Dos, I wasn't active on GDC anymore and wasn't involved with the fandom much at all. So when I heard it, I had the exact same reaction as you- I knew Billie wrote autobiographically and I can still remember being at a gas station, listening to it in my car and just being mortified. There was just no way that could be happening to this couple. I didn't want to listen to Dos ever again. See You Tonight, Fuck Time, and Amy are the only tracks on there I would frequent.

However, since then, I've come to take a different perspective on it. With our knowledge of his addiction, I was able to look at Stray Heart and this cheating narrative throughout Dos as one regarding drugs/addiction as the other entity involved in the "cheating", not an actual person. So I can digest Dos a whole lot better now, although the narrative still makes me uncomfortable on a personal level.

I see where you are coming from. Although even See You Tonight would fit into the cheating narrative imo. I don't personally care about Billie's marriage like a lot of people here (seem weirdly obsessed by it) but listening to three albums about cheating or having affairs just makes me uncomfortable from a moral perspective. Like it doesn't exactly motivate me to sing along or jump around if you know what I mean. There are songs that sound really good that are about cheating such as 8th Avenue Serenade, and I do like that one, but I almost feel bad singing along because in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the fact that the song is about a girl from New York (Billie's own words) and he's singing about meeting her in the bathroom stall before the flames die out. It's impossible to ignore that the words are coming out of a married father and it makes me cringe...and stop the music. Maybe we just aren't used to Billie being really honest in his lyrics because he doesn't regret the trilogy as a folly of his addictions. It actually would be rather sad if he feels we are muzzling him because of negative feedback on his lyrics. He certainly went 180 in the lyrics on Revrad and almost every sentence is an attempt at an obscure metaphor. To be honest, I'd take songs about cheating and affairs any day over cellos and shopping online so as to vote at the speed of life

[The Bellie]

2 hours ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

I see where you are coming from. Although even See You Tonight would fit into the cheating narrative imo. I don't personally care about Billie's marriage like a lot of people here (seem weirdly obsessed by it) but listening to three albums about cheating or having affairs just makes me uncomfortable from a moral perspective. Like it doesn't exactly motivate me to sing along or jump around if you know what I mean. There are songs that sound really good that are about cheating such as 8th Avenue Serenade, and I do like that one, but I almost feel bad singing along because in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the fact that the song is about a girl from New York (Billie's own words) and he's singing about meeting her in the bathroom stall before the flames die out. It's impossible to ignore that the words are coming out of a married father and it makes me cringe...and stop the music. Maybe we just aren't used to Billie being really honest in his lyrics because he doesn't regret the trilogy as a folly of his addictions. It actually would be rather sad if he feels we are muzzling him because of negative feedback on his lyrics. He certainly went 180 in the lyrics on Revrad and almost every sentence is an attempt at an obscure metaphor. To be honest, I'd take songs about cheating and affairs any day over cellos and shopping online so as to vote at the speed of life

Your post seems really confused to me 

On one hand, you say that you "would take songs about cheating and affairs any day over cellos and shopping online..." but still you feel uncomfortable "listening to three albums about cheating or having affairs". Well, why? My life has been a severe addiction journey; that being said, I will never pretend knowing exactly and entirely what every section of his songwriting stands for to Billie, and of course the trilogy can't be reduced to a "folly of his addictions". I don't think either that there are songs that are only about one negative aspect of Billie's life and others that are only positive, the first ones being embarrassingly "honest" and the latter some "attempts at an obscure metaphor". Not the way I see RevRad, and it's my favorite album.

Moreover, I think each of us is in right to listen to what he wants and likes without any justification needed, and even though we're not sure about the story behind the song (that we might never really know) and we only know it must have been something hard / not pretty. Every song Billie has written, wherever it comes from, is part of the person he is today. I'm most grateful to Billie, and everything new I learn about him, whether it can be related to present or past including his bad health/unhappiness at some point, is something I cherish and that makes me love even more all he's written, especially the trilogy songs, precisely because I understand more and more what time it must have been to him. I need and I want to understand this time also, and to feel what it makes me feel. Any moral blockage to it would be a misleading of mine.

[emmericanidiot]

On 07/09/2017 at 10:35 PM, SHART said:

That was the other comment I was gonna query.....

I don't think we're ever gonna know 

On 09/09/2017 at 1:05 PM, MysticManiac said:

X-Kid > Still Breathing

I can't believe I'm agreeing with this but after thinking about it, I agree with this.

[Hermione]

I'm sorry but there's a difference between music and real life. If you think it's "inappropriate" for Billie to sing what he's stated are fictional lyrics exploring the idea of having a fling then maybe try to remember that. Would you have a problem with him playing someone having a fling in a film because in real life he's a "married father"? Or writing a book about it? For all we know those songs could draw on experiences from before he was married or even experiences with Adrienne, or be entirely fictional, or a mixture. He's written about relationships with people other than his wife and new relationships etc on other albums and with FBHT, not sure why it's only a problem on Uno Dos and Tre especially when the conclusion there is that giving in to that stuff leads to bad results and that love and faithfulness is the way to go. It seems extremely artistically limiting to want or expect him only to write lyrics that literally describe his current life.

[The Bellie]

3 hours ago, MysticManiac said:

I just love the harmonies during the chorus of X-Kid, especially the last one. And to me, it seems like a unique song that doesn't really sound/remind me of any other GD song. Still Breathing is still a great song but it would probably be quite low in my ranking of songs on RevRad. It tries to be a deep and meaningful song about how he's still breathing but it doesn't seem as emotional as a song like WMUWSE, which I think it's kind of trying to emulate. And I mean, SB wasn't exactly overplayed but even so, I am getting a little bored of it but it was fine as a single, it did pretty well and I know a lot of people connect to it a lot.

The GD songs that remind me of other GD songs are almost inexistent, and even when, it's very partial. 

I don't think Still Breathing is "trying" anything more than what is to hear, and to see when Billie sings it when performing. As for the meaning, everyone gets what it means to him/her personally. I don't think my interpretation of the lyrics in Still Breathing, and the way it touches me, are necessarily close to someone else's. 

Wake Me Up When September Ends is very emotional indeed, but I don't see why comparing the intensity of emotion between the two songs, as it is not the same emotion, neither is it the same subject.

[Beerjeezus]

I don't understand how Trilogy is morally problematic but other stuff he's written like Platypus is morally A-Ok. 

[Hermione]

4 minutes ago, Jane Lannister said:

I don't understand how Trilogy is morally problematic but other stuff he's written like Platypus is morally A-Ok. 

Let's condemn him for every lyric he's written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous 

[Beerjeezus]

1 minute ago, Hermione said:

Let's condemn him for every lyric he's written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous 

Yes!!!! He's such an awful person Disgusting 

[Christian's Inferno!]

Just now, Kuromignonne said:

The GD songs that remind me of other GD songs are almost inexistent, and even when, it's very partial. 

I don't think Still Breathing is "trying" anything more than what is to hear, and to see when Billie sings it when performing. As for the meaning, everyone gets what it means to him/her personally. I don't think my interpretation of the lyrics in Still Breathing, and the way it touches me, are necessarily close to someone else's. 

Wake Me Up When September Ends is very emotional indeed, but I don't see why comparing the intensity of emotion between the two songs, as it is not the same emotion, neither is it the same subject.

I'm not trying to take anything away from SB which I believe was a very personal song to Billie but it seems less unique and it does seem like a song that anyone who has gone through some hard times could've written. Again, I think it's a good song, just not as much as X-Kid.

And I don't think SB is trying to be WMUWSE but it's trying to convey similar kind of emotions which I don't think it does as effectively

X-Kid is just a song that stands out to me from the rest of the trilogy whereas SB wouldn't be one of the songs that stand out to me from RevRad

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

10 minutes ago, Hermione said:

Let's condemn him for every lyric he's written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous 

 So because someone doesn't enjoy singing along to songs about cheating it means they're "condemning" Billie for every lyric he's ever written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous   What an utterly ridiculous way to twist something. 

 

6 minutes ago, Jane Lannister said:

Yes!!!! He's such an awful person Disgusting 

14 minutes ago, Jane Lannister said:

I don't understand how Trilogy is morally problematic but other stuff he's written like Platypus is morally A-Ok. 

 

[pacejunkie punk]

18 minutes ago, Hermione said:

Let's condemn him for every lyric he's written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous 

Not only this but I actually hear the Trilogy as the complete opposite of infidelity. This is self confessed fantasy from a guy that needs an outlet because he's been faithfully married since he was 22. He never got to experience these things is my takeaway (and it's frustratingly all around him and available)  so he gets to live them out in songs. He literally says, "My imagination runs away" in 8th Ave Seranade to name just one example. I think if he had been doing these things he wouldn't have been writing about it, the fact that he is tells you it's fantasy and if you think about it, kind of healthy in a way compared to committing the actual act(s).

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

1 minute ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Not only this but I actually hear the Trilogy as the complete opposite of infidelity. This is self confessed fantasy from a guy that needs an outlet because he's been faithfully married since he was 22. He never got to experience these things is my takeaway so he gets to live them out in songs. He literally says, "My imagination runs away" in 8th Ave Seranade to name just one example. I think if he had been doing these things he wouldn't have been writing about it, the fact that he is tells you it's fantasy and if you think about it, kind of healthy in a way compared to committing the actual act(s).

So who is the girl from New York Billie said that the song is about? 

[pacejunkie punk]

Just now, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

So who is the girl from New York Billie said that the song is about? 

Possibly a real girl he wanted to get together with for a meaningless quickie but being faithful he merely imagined it and put it in a song?  He is human and even happily married men have fantasies. 

[Hermione]

7 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

 So because someone doesn't enjoy singing along to songs about cheating it means they're "condemning" Billie for every lyric he's ever written that isn't perfectly moral and virtuous   What an utterly ridiculous way to twist something. 

 

 

Well yeah we were being silly there . But my first post stands. Can't help if you don't like songs about that subject but I just disagree that the way he wrote about it was morally troublesome.

[Beerjeezus]

4 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

So who is the girl from New York Billie said that the song is about? 

That's me, obviously 

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

25 minutes ago, Hermione said:

Well yeah we were being silly there . But my first post stands. Can't help if you don't like songs about that subject but I just disagree that the way he wrote about it was morally troublesome.

Well that's your opinion. Cheating isn't morally OK imo and I don't like song after song about fucking around behind someone's back. That's just my opinion. If you think cheating is morally OK good for you.

[pacejunkie punk]

Just now, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

Well that's your opinion. Cheating isn't morally OK imo and I don't like song after song about fucking around behind someone's back. That's just my opinion. If you think cheating is morally OK good for you.

How about song after song about fantasizing about cheating because it keeps you from doing the actual thing? Isn't that the right way to go?

[Hermione]

3 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

Well that's your opinion. Cheating isn't morally OK imo and I don't like song after song about fucking around behind someone's back. That's just my opinion. If you think cheating is morally OK good for you.

A song about cheating isn't the same thing as cheating. Thinking that writing a song (or book or film etc) about cheating is morally OK isn't the same thing as thinking cheating is morally OK.

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

4 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Possibly a real girl he wanted to get together with for a meaningless quickie but being faithful he merely imagined it and put it in a song?  He is human and even happily married men have fantasies. 

Well he stood onstage and said that the song was about a girl from New York so I'm very positive he's not delusional and she is a real girl. I am also fairly certain he didn't imagine any quickie either. I may of course be wrong but so may you and since he did write Stray Heart apologising for an affair I'm going to go ahead and assume I'm correct. 

[DeJennsitized]

10 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

So who is the girl from New York Billie said that the song is about? 

For someone who says they don't give a fuck about Billie's marriage/relationships you do post about it an awful lot  

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

Just now, Jenn. said:

For someone who says they don't give a fuck about Billie's marriage/relationships you do post about it an awful lot  

We are talking about trilogy songs. He wrote about girls hence the discussion 

[Hermione]

@Hero_Of_The_Hour Is this the thing where you'll only take lyrics completely literally and black and white again?  A song can be inspired by more than one thing. Bits of it can be inspired by things that happened years ago, other bits by something he was just thinking about, other bits by someone he met, other bits by his wife etc, it doesn't just have to be a literal account of one thing. He could write a song about a sexy fling and really have his wife in mind, he could just write something because it sounds cool. The possibilities are endless, not only limited to literally describing real things.

I wonder did you miss that on the trilogy the cheating and partying etc ends badly, and he comes to the conclusion that being faithful/love is the better option? Even from your standpoint of assuming that by mentioning anything Billie is endorsing that thing and/or giving a 100% factual account of a literal event that just happened it still comes to a morally just conclusion in the end.