The lyrics to the song:
[Part I: Jesus of Suburbia ]
I'm the son of rage and love
The Jesus of suburbia
From the bible of none of the above
On a steady diet of
Soda pop and Ritalin
No one ever died for my sins in hell
As far as I can tell
At least the ones I got away with
But there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don't believe in me
Get my television fix
Sitting on my crucifix
The living room of my private womb
While the moms and Brads are away
To fall in love and fall in debt
To alcohol and cigarettes
And Mary Jane to keep me insane
And doing someone else's cocaine
[Part II: City Of The D***ed]
At the center of the Earth
In the parking lot
Of the 7-11 were I was taught
The motto was just a lie
It says "home is were your heart is"
But what a shame
Cause everyone's heart
Doesn't beat the same
We're beating out of time
City of the dead
At the end of another lost highway
Signs misleading to nowhere
City of the d***ed
Lost children with dirty faces today
No one really seems to care
I read the graffiti
In the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures of a shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess
It didn't say much
But it only confirmed that
The center of the earth
Is the end of the world
And I could really care less
[Part III: I don't care]
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care [x5]
Everyone is so full of s**t
Burn and raised by hipocrites
Hearts recycled but never saved
From the cradle to the grave
We are the kids of war and peace
From Anaheim to the middle east
We are the stories and disciples
Of the Jesus of Suburbia
Land of make believe
And it don't believe in me
Land of make believe
And I don't believe
And I don't care!
[Part IV: Dearly beloved]
Dearly beloved are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying
Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure
Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?
Nobody's perfect and I stand accused
For lack of a better word, and that's my best excuse
[Part V: Tales of another broken home]
To live and not to breathe
Is to die in tragedy
To run, to run away
To find what you believe
And I leave behind
This hurricane of f***ing lies
I lost my faith to this
This town that don't exist
So I run
I run away
To the light of masochists
And I leave behind
This hurricane of f***ing lies
And I walked this line
A million and one f***ing times
But not this time
I don't feel any shame
I wont apologize
When there ain't nowhere you can go
Running away from pain
When you've been victimized
Tales from another broken home
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I've heard several meanings to this song.Here are just a few;
I really hope this thing doesn’t have a word limit. But anyways, I'll share my interpretation of this song, despite the fact my points may have been covered by somebody else. For all those that are fans of Fuse (TV station)...you may have seen 100% or AOL Sessions with GD or one of the many other Green Day shows…all of which have a blurb about some of the songs. But to get on with it… my interpretation…
[Part I: Jesus of Suburbia]: I think that Billy Joe is describing himself as the JOS. This is basically the introduction to the rest of the CD, American idiot was describing how he was the “American Idiot”, who hates being manipulated by the media and just hates current day America, the “alienation.” In Part one of JOS he’s describing how much he hates himself, but is saying how he’s like every one else in America, so the bad he does doesn’t really matter. “No one ever died for my sins in hell As far as I can tell At least the ones I got away with.” “But there's nothing wrong with me This is how I'm supposed to be” means that that although he doesn’t like who he is, he’s the way he was created by the American government, so he’s the way he’s supposed to be. “The living room of my private womb While the moms and Brads are away” is saying that he’s isolated himself because the people he depends on and looks up to are never there. “To fall in love and fall in debt To alcohol and cigarettes And Mary Jane to keep me insane And doing someone else's cocaine” is the fact that everyone these days is one of the above, and usually hate themselves for being that way.
[Part II: City Of The Damned]: This is the part of the song where Billy Joe decides to break away from the life he’s always led. “The motto was just a lie It says "home is were your heart is" But what a shame Cause everyone's heart Doesn't beat the same” is saying that he’s not like everybody else, so a regular home doesn’t suit him. At his regular hangout, the 7-11, he decides to leave everything. “City of the dead At the end of another lost highway Signs misleading to nowhere” is the description of JOS’s hometown, a ghostown, so it’s not worth staying. “But it only confirmed that The center of the earth Is the end of the world And I could really care less” is saying that what he read in the “bathroom stall” was only reassuring him that he should leave.
[Part III: I don't care] : He doesn’t care about what other people think. It’s his life and nobody else should give a crap about how he spends it. “Everyone is so full of s**t Born and raised by hypocrites” is talking about the government, they raise everybody the same, so there’s no diversity between a land of hypocritical zombies. He refers to non-adults as “disciples of the Jesus of Suburbia” meaning that the smart ones, who have a mind of their own, don’t want to be like everybody else. That line kind of reflects off of some of Green Day’s material, most of which has an underlying theme of being different than everybody else, which also refers to Billie being both the lead of Green Day and the JOS. “We are the kids of war and peace” is saying that no matter where they’re from, teenagers like diversity and don’t like the government. The “land of make believe” refers to America, so the CEOs and officials and whatnot don’t like him, henceforth not believing in him.
[Part IV: Dearly beloved]: Dearly beloved is definitely one of my favorite tracks on the CD. I think it’s the JOS looking back on a memory or thought in his life, because it’s much more mellow and is looking for help, not to escape the hell he’s in during American Idiot and the earlier appendices in JOS. It’s the JOS asking if somebody close to him thought he was truly different (“disturbed”) or if all of America was socially screwed up. I’m not quite sure what Billie Joe’s referring to about the “space that’s in between insane and insecure.” My best guess is the gap between America’s youth and the people who control them. The second half of this appendix is looking to therapy to help him with the void in his life, probably due to the fact that the important people in his life have never been there, as said in the first appendix. He’s asking if he’s retarded or overjoyed because of the fact that he’s different and is happy that he is different. “For lack of a better word, and that’s my best excuse” is saying that he’s being persecuted because he’s different.
[Part V: Tales of another broken home]: This is when JOS finally runs away after contemplating staying where he is. He decides that anywhere is better than where he is, somewhere where he won’t be persecuted and exactly the opposite of the “town that doesn’t exist”. So he runs away, leaving everything he knows behind, and doesn’t regret his choice one bit. He’s “running away from pain” possibly inflicted by the people that were never there, which can be tied in to the death of his father when he was a child.
The whole song is the beginning of the Punk Rock Opera that American Idiot is. Jesus of Suburbia introduces the listener into what the rest of American Idiot is about.
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This is my interpretation of American Idiot. Not saying it’s the right one, but this is what I got. Also, I tend to take things pretty literally, so bear with me. My interpretation starts here; I’m not going to start with the title track because I find that out of place/unnecessary in the plot.
Jesus of Suburbia is pretty much like any modern day America’s regular teenager. He’s pretty rebellious, and he feels that the world should revolve him. He thinks that there’s nothing to life, but as we see later, he’s pretty ignorant of what the real word is. He’s frustrated by the society he lives in as it puts him down; he strives against it.
One thing about Jesus of Suburbia that we learn in City of the Damned is why he’s known as Jesus of Suburbia. It somewhat parallels with Jesus Christ and what he did. Jesus of Suburbia basically “preaches” to his friends, (“disciples”), and is persecuted by most everyone else for what he believes in. As we see in City of the Damned, Jesus explains what he sees as the “truth about the world,” hidden from the eyes of pretty much everyone. It can only be found in the most unexpected places where no one would actually think to look (“The bathroom wall”). He wants to shed the cover that he thinks society is using to blind people from the truth of the world. He also feels that he cannot trust anyone, feels that everyone is either against him or just spreading lies and they don’t care about his feelings. He’s trapped.
I Don’t Care is Jesus’ comeback to the harshness of society. He retorts by “not caring if everyone else doesn’t,” and explains that no one else should care about what he does. When the disciples sing (“Everyone is so full of s**t…the Jesus of Suburbia”), they’re basically conveying Jesus’ meaning of not being able to trust anyone, and they explain the oppression of teenagers, the only people with “free thought.”
Dearly Beloved introduces us to another part of Jesus’ personality. It’s basically a soliloquy from Jesus to anyone willing to listen. He’s asking why things are like they are, of if he’s really the only one who thinks like this. He appears to be apart from his disciples, who, although they seem to merely “follow” him, put a social peer pressure on him. He asks if it is he needs help (mentally), or if he’s actually supposed to be different.
In Tales from Another Broken Home, Jesus really starts to feel that he needs to escape before he totally loses his freedom. He really begins to shun the people he’s closest to, and beliefs that he needs to find out what life is really like, out *there* somewhere, where he won’t be attacked for what he believes in. There’s at attitude that has been placed on him over and over again, and at last, it breaks him, and he leaves.
Something important to note. This song introduces us into one of the main themes of the story, “What is home?” Throughout the story, Jesus asks of where his “home” is, whether it be on the streets, of “where his heart is,” or where he’s able to be free.
What's your meaning of the song?
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