Green Day

I adore Green Day. Dookie was the first album I bought my self, on CD. But it was always their older songs, off 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk! that I liked best.

This song, I always enjoyed, but when I moved out of my parents house and into my own place, it took on a whole new meaning for me. It really captured the fear and exhilaration of striking out alone, going into the big wide world of NYC.

My mother particularly, was worried about the area I moved into. You see, there are brown people around, and that makes my mother nervous. (Which makes no sense to me, considering she grew up in Queens in the seventies – you think that would count for more than twenty years of Long Island whitebread living, but go figure.)

Thank god I got the hell away from her. Living on my own, no matter how rough, is much better than being at my parents house.

Dear mother,
Can you hear me laughing
It’s been six whole months since
Since that I have left your home
It makes me wonder why I’m still here
For some strange reason it’s now
Feeling like my home
And I’m never gonna go

Pay attention to the cracked streets
And the broken homes
Some call it slums
Some call it nice
I want to take you through
a wasteland I like to call
my home
Welcome To Paradise