Lineage 1: Anti-War & Reevaluation of War
One of the prominent critiques that Holiday has is that it critiques the Bush presidency for acting quickly to bomb Iraq despite its allies wanting to find a peaceful solution to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). This song is “anti-war” as it critiques the Iraq war even though there was no “just” entry into the area. All 3 songs in this lineage call for the general public to reevaluate their lives and the status quo through their lyrics in regards to the Vietnam War (For What It’s Worth and Born In the USA) and the Iraq War (Holiday).
- For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield) 1967:
The refrain calls for the listeners to stop, and look around to see what is going down. The lyrics in the verses talk about what is going on around the world and what is going on through the different stages of the Vietnam War (something happening, battle lines being drawn, a field day for the heat). Questions what is the war really worth in the grand scheme of the life.
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look – what’s going down?
- Born In The USA (Bruce Springsteen) 1984:
This song by Bruce Springsteen was written during the Vietnam War, hypocritically saying that the United States is a great nation. This song speaks about the Vietnam War and a man goes through getting drafted and going through the process of war and trying to make sense of coming home from Vietnam.
- Holiday (Green Day) 2004
This lineage helps me to understand Holiday even more because it allows me to further understand the lyrics and perception of war. Looking at the social repercussion of war, this lineage allows me to look at the entry of war through lens of people in society. Even with learning about Woodstock, this lineage comes to light through how songs were able to give people an avenue to voice their opinions against war.
Lineage 2: Properganda
Holiday is a song that made critiques the Bush administration’s actions during the ‘War on Terror’ in Iraq. When war coverage was reaching America, it was more fueled by political propaganda rather than the facts.
- Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac) 1987:
This song talks about someone trying to disguise the truth but they always tell little lies to try and keep a relationship together. But as the little lies are discovered to be lies, it settles in that they may not be the best for each other.
- American Idiot (Green Day) 2004:
The title track of Green Day’s album that features my podcast song, American Idiot is a song that talks about America and how the media is always saying one thing and the world is actually the exact opposite of what the media protrays.
Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alien nation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
For that’s enough to argue
- Holiday (Green Day) 2004
This lineage helps me to understand Holiday even more because it allows me to look at the way people could deceive others through media. In this day and age with everything happening on social media, anyone could say anything despite fact-checking it, and someone would perceive it to be true.
April 2, 2020 at 7:03 am
Will,
Listens 3, 4, and 5 are all good posts. Listen 3 is a good summary of punk and I’m glad you included the HOF video there to give some additional content. I do wish, however, you had also considered how more recently (and on Holiday in particular) Green Day is merging several genres together — punk, rock, ballad — to create a more nuanced version of punk and hard rock. As they say in the video, evolving was important for them. We’ve talked about Listen 4. Listen 5 creates a very good lineages for the songs, though it’s interesting that you don’t include any punk songs in there, as well, as they most certainly are part of the GD lineage.
Bill