21 Guns

Happy Thanksgiving!

21 Guns by Green Day

I was going to try to find a Thanksgiving-themed song, but:

a) I didn't think I would find anything good. Thanksgiving doesn't do music like Christmas does.

b) I do these posts so late that I figured it might not be Thanksgiving anymore by the time I published it....and it's not as cute or funny the next day.

So I went for this song 'cause it's been stuck in my head for the past 3 days, ever since I did the entry on Telephone Line. I know they don't really sound alike, but there's a series of like four notes that have the same melody, and I can't stop merging the two in my head.

And anyway, this is a good song. When it came out seven years ago, it was Green Day's highest-charting single since 2005. It also garnered critical acclaim and was even nominated for two Grammys in 2010 (x).

You probably already know it just from general radio play and such, but it's also possible you heard it in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It was on that soundtrack.

Less prominently, it was in the television series The Vampire Diaries and the game Rock Band.

It's a solid rock song with powerful guitar lines and "big power-pop chord changes" that keep you invested throughout the five and a half minutes of the song.

I think it's easy to write the song off as another break-up song bemoaning the end of a relationship that doesn't seem to be working anymore. I know I thought that's what it was about the first time I heard it. But the band has confirmed that it's actually a song about patriotism, and critics have called it a "sophisticated protest" (x).

Glad to hear it wasn't using the struggles of our armed forces as a metaphor but was genuinely addressing anti-war sentiment, PTSD, and the treatment of veterans in this country. Important stuff.

UPDATE: I'm not crazy! Wikipedia cites another blog that says "the chorus sounded more like ELO's 'Telephone Line'.

Overview:

Genre:
Alt Rock

Favorite Lyrics:
Does it take your breath away
and you feel yourself suffocating?

Verdict:
takes me back to 2009