10 Perfect Rock Songs That Are Ridiculously Long
6. Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
The idea of having a punk rock song that's incredibly long just feels stupid. The whole mission statement behind most punk outfits was about being straight and to the point, and even going above 4 minutes was considered a bit over the line. When Green Day decided to flirt with the rock opera though, Billie Joe Armstrong gave us one massive experience on Jesus of Suburbia.
Almost setting the scene for the rest of the track to play out, this entire song is made up of short snippets of what could have been great Green Day songs, only to be stitched together into one 9 minute epic. Since this was the very beginning the album, this is where the story of the titular Jesus unfolds, being happy to wallow in his sedated state of Ritalin and TV until wanting to find something more. As he basks in his glory of being the king of the 7-11, things keep getting more and more chaotic until he finally decides to ditch his life back home for the big city on Tales From Another Broken Home.
When you've started off like this, Green Day needed to come correct for the rest of the album, bookending the whole thing with Homecoming when our hero gets a nice dose of reality after living in the big city. For any other band, this would have been powerful enough for the album closer, but not here. We are only getting started, so you'd better strap in for the rest of the record.