10 Classic Rock Songs That Were Written For Someone Else

With years of hindsight, Green Day have always been so much more than just your traditional punk rock outfit. While they are proud to rep for their punk community back home, the music that they've made since has almost been closer to power pop in some respects, sounding a lot more like something from the Jam and especially Cheap Trick during the mid '90s. The world of power pop was never supposed to be a boys club though, and Billie Joe was only too flattered to write with the Go-Gos during their resurgence.

On paper though, this might seem like a bit of a weird pairing, since the Go-Gos in their heyday seemed to be more about bright glittery pop than anything edgy. For everyone in the know though, these ladies have had some serious cred in the industry, being rooted in the punk scene in California long before We Got the Beat even became a thing.

As the years go by, some of that pent up anger mellows out after a while, and Unforgiven is almost a sugar high with how chipper it is. Compared to what Billie Joe is used to writing, he really understood the job here, writing more for the fans who loved stuff like Our Lips are Sealed than having them sound like a poor man's American Idiot knockoff. Outside of all the genre tags though, Billie working with the Go-Gos is more about paying respect to the old school punks. They might not sound exactly alike or anything, but real always recognizes real.