Billie Joe and the (Song) Writing Process

Green Day’s new album, 21st Century Breakdown, makes me love Billie Joe Armstrong all the more, the vulnerable man, the rebel, the dreamer, the defiled. One of the songs, Before the Lobotomy, clearly, relates to his father’s death and the reversal of his happy childhood. Certain songs stick in my mind, Viva La Gloria, and 21 Guns among them. This album is not American Idiot; I won’t call it better or worse, just different. The more times you listen to the rock opera, the more the music grows, and the lyrics and emotional impact expand. Like Idiot, listening to 21st Century Breakdown is an experience. And the range and perfection of Armstrong’s singing voice is increased.

PREMIERE PERFORMANCE

21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN

OAKLAND, CA - 4-14-09

My husband suspects he’s spent some of the five years since Idiot taking singing lessons, improving what was already impressive. All I know is my concerns about the production of his voice on the album were erased with Armstrong’s flawless performance of the difficult 21 Guns during Green Day’s live performance, May 16th, on Saturday Night Live, and his masterful crowd energizing live performance, May 22nd, on Good Morning America. Armstrong looks happy and healthy, and the stage is where he claims to feel the best.

ROLLING STONE - ISSUE 1079 - 5-28-09

There’s a great new article in the May 28, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone, where Armstrong talks about the insecurity that goes along with writing his songs: “You can scare yourself with ambition- having the audacity to want to be as good as John Lennon or Paul McCartney… There has been so much great shit before me that I feel like a student… But you have to battle past that… If you’re at that place where you’ve been working hard but don’t feel like you know what you’re doing anymore, then you’re onto something.”

STUDIO SHOT - 21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN

So, I guess Armstrong’s words of encouragement give me permission to keep writing my several novels-in-progress to completion, even when I’m not sure what I’m doing, or how the final draft will ultimately shine. On the other hand, in the Rolling Stone article Armstrong also says, “I’ve been consumed. I tell my wife, ‘Sorry that for the last 15 years all I’ve talked about is being in a rock band.’”

BILLIE JOE, AND WIFE, ADRIENNE ARMSTRONG

And he has concerns about what his children will think of his lyrics: “I like painting an ugly picture. I get something uplifting out of singing some of the most horrifying shit you can sing about.” He smiles. “It’s just my DNA.” About his 14 year old son, Joseph, listening to the new album: “I want to make sure ‘Christian’s Inferno’ (song title) isn’t going on in my house. I don’t think he understands everything that’s going on in there… But in the next few years, he’s definitely going to do some investigating.”

ADRIENNE AND BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG

Songwriting, or novel writing- our insecurities about our talent, our desire for connection, our worries about the time taken away from our relationships, and our concerns about revealing too much about our demons or our hopes- is much the same, it seems.

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