Boulevard Of Broken Dreams American Idiot Green Day

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
American Idiot Album: American Idiot (2004)
by Green Day

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams is about estrangement and the recognition that the American Dream can let you down. The singer's hopes have been crushed, and he finds himself very much alone.

"It's just about loneliness," Armstrong told People in a 2024 interview. "Anytime that I would be writing songs for a record, you feel like a sense of isolation. At that time, I went to New York by myself. I was staying in an apartment, and I was there for quite some time - over a couple months - and I was just trying to focus on writing [American Idiot] with no distractions. There can be all of this chaos going on around you, but ultimately you can find yourself pretty alone in the world."

This follows the main character from Green Day's song "Jesus Of Suburbia." He leaves town, has one crazy first night, and now it's kind of like the hangover. He's just walking, thinking about whether it was the right decision leaving where he used to live.

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" is a famous painting by Gottfried Helnwein depicting Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean and Elvis Presley hanging out in a bar. Helnwein's painting is a parody of a painting called "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. In a VH1 Storytellers session, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said he saw the title on another Helnwein painting of James Dean from 1948. "There's an old James Dean photo where he's walking in New York and underneath it says 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams.' It's a great photo of him, so that's where I sort of nicked the title from," he said.

This song won the Grammy for Record Of The Year at the 2006 ceremony. The previous year, American Idiot won for Best Rock Album.
In Rolling Stone's Decade-End Readers' Poll, this was voted the Best Single of the '00s. Green Day proved they are the band of choice among Rolling Stone readers by also grabbing the #1 spot for Best Album (American Idiot) and being named Top Artist of the Decade.

Billie Joe Armstrong, under quarantine due to the coronavirus, played this from his home as part of the "Living Room Concert For America," broadcast on March 29, 2020. Armstrong did the song accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and the jingling of his dog Lenny's collar as the pooch wandered around the room.

In The Office episode "Secret Santa" from season 6, Dwight and Andy sing this at the staff Christmas party. Billie Joe Armstrong binged The Office for the first time back in 2019, unaware that "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" gets sung. "I was watching that episode and then all of a sudden the song came on and I was completely taken by surprise," he recalled to the Office Ladies podcast. "I think my face started to get red, and Andy started singing harmonies," he added. "He sang the same exact harmony that's in the musical. So it was good."

refers to the state of the United States at that point in time. It speaks of a nation controlled by the new, biased media, and how the singer is not part of a "Redneck Agenda" discontent with how things are going. It was released during the 2004 presidential campaign, where George W. Bush was re-elected.

Green Day performed this at the 2005 Grammy awards, where the album won for Best Rock Album. It was also nominated for Album of the Year, but lost to Ray Charles' posthumously released album, Genius Loves Company.

The title track American Idiot was nominated for Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, Best Rock Song, and Best Music Video Short Form, but didn't take home any of the prizes.

This is one of three Green Day songs that is also the name of the album it comes from. The others are "Warning" and "Revolution Radio."

Samuel Bayer, who did the famous Blind Melon video for "No Rain" (the one with the bee girl), directed the "American Idiot" video. He did a few other Green Day videos as well, including "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams."

Billie Joe Armstrong was inspired to write this after hearing a jingoistic Lynyrd Skynyrd song being played on his car radio, whilst driving to the studio. He told Q magazine May 2009: "It was like, I'm proud to be a redneck and I was like, Oh my God, why would you be proud of something like that? This is exactly what I'm against. When he got to the studio, Armstrong furiously penned this song. He said: "I looked at the guys like, Do you mind that I'm saying this? And they were like, No, we agree with you. And it started the ball rolling."
Billie Joe Armstrong told Spin magazine in November 2004 regarding the American Idiot album: "It's about the confusion of where we're at right now. My education was punk rock - what the Dead Kennedys said, what Operation Ivy said. It was attacking America, but it was American at the same time."

When asked by an VH1 Storytellers' audience member if anyone who voted for George W. Bush was an "American Idiot," Billie Joe Armstrong replied: "No, just a misinformed idiot."

In 2006, grocery clerk Paul McPike sued Green Day, alleging that he'd written "American Idiot" and the other songs on their album way back in 1992. McPike's evidence consisted entirely of a copy of the album and a claim that the lyrics sung on the album didn't match those in the sleeve notes. The US District Court Judge suggested he could file a more detailed copyright infringement complaint in the future.
The 2007 Simpsons Movie boasted an "American Idiot: Funeral Version" played on an organ after the band's fictional drowning in Lake Springfield during a performance on a barge.

In July 2018 a Facebook campaign was set up to get the song to the top of the UK charts in protest against President Donald Trump's visit to the country. At first, it looked like the track might break into the Top 10, but it finished the week of his UK visit at #25.
This song came top of a list compiled by South China University Of Technology of the most dangerous songs to listen to in the car. According to their research, listening to higher tempo tunes is more likely to make you drive faster and risk dangerous maneuvers. Songs with more than 120 beats per minute (BPM) have the most negative impact, and "American Idiot," with a BPM of 189, came top of their tally. It was followed by Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." and The Killers' "Mr. Brightside. Led Zeppelin's " Stairway To Heaven" was considered the least dangerous.

Green Day have associated this song with Donald Trump since 2017, when Billie Joe Armstrong would shout "F--k you Trump!" before performing it at concerts. When they played the song on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest in 2023, they changed the line "I'm not a part of a redneck agenda" to "I'm not a part of the MAGA agenda,".