10 Things You Never Knew About Green Day
4. Longview Was Written Under the Influence
Most '90s kids first got acquainted with Green Day thanks to their classic track Longview. With one of the more memorable music videos from their early period, this ode to smoking pot, masturbation, and being bored watching TV was enough to hook in most of the rock community looking for something a bit more upbeat than grunge. Even though there was a lot of amazing parts of this tune, its signature feature almost never saw the light of day.
Anyone who listens to this tune knows about its bassline, with Mike Dirnt dancing all over the chord changes as the lead instrument in the verses. Instead of sitting back and carefully choosing the notes, a good portion of this bassline was actually composed with some...shall we say...chemical assistance. As Billie tells the story, he came home to the house the band were staying in at the time to find Dirnt out of his mind on acid with his bass draped around his lap.
Originally just laughing it off, Mike exclaimed "LISTEN TO THIS" and proceeded to play the entire bassline in one fell swoop. To everyone's amazement, the lick ended up surviving Mike's drugged out stupor and found its way into pop punk history. Given that Mike is said to have forgotten the rest of the lick he originally laid down, it's a damn miracle that we were able to at least get this little piece of musical brilliance.