10 Song Meanings Everyone Gets Wrong

There's a good chance that over half of Western civilization has had to slog through Green Day's Good Riddance at some point in their lives. Even if you couldn't name another Green Day song or even a rock song in general, chances are this has been the soundtrack to many a graduation ceremony, with lyrics about moving on to the next chapter in your life. If you listen to what Billie Joe Armstrong is saying though, this is a lot more salty than you probably realized.

When Billie was writing the tune, he was actually going through a pretty nasty breakup with his girlfriend, and this song was his way to let out his frustration. Listening back to the lyrics with that in mind, the whole thing feels almost sarcastic coming out of his mouth, telling her to capture the memories while she can before everything crumbles to pieces. Since this was an acoustic ballad, this winding up on Dookie wasn't going to work, leading to it being shelved and given a string section for Nimrod.

Even when Billie hears the song these days, he's shocked at just how calm he sounds with everything, saying that it took everything he could to actually sound level headed on a song like this. Those who don't know any better focus on the Time of Your Life subtitle of the song, but you have to remember that the proper version is called Good Riddance for good reason.