Well, it’s September, which means Green Day‘s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” will likely get a lot of play in the social media universe. But Green Day fans are reminding people who are posting jokes exactly why doing so may be bad form.
While the title may lend itself to some humorous ideas for memes, singer Billie Joe Armstrong revealed during a Howard Stern Show appearance in 2019 that the actual inspiration for the song is a rather sad and personal one for him. The title comes from a phrase he told his mother upon learning of his father’s death. Andrew Armstrong, Billie Joe’s father, died when Billie Joe was just 10 from esophageal cancer.
“I think it’s something that just stayed with me; the month of September being that anniversary that always is just, I don’t know, kind of a bummer,” he said. “But it’s weird. When things happen like that when you’re that young, it’s almost like life starts at year zero, or something like that.” The singer admitted that it was hard to him to write about his father for years, but the song felt like a breakthrough and a way to honor him.
The song itself is about a loss of innocence, something that the video portrayed in a different way while not directly addressing Armstrong’s father.
Green Day, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
As Sept. 1 arrived, a number of Green Day fans posted about why jokes centered around the song title weren’t really “cool.”
Armstrong, seemingly aware of the attention placed on “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” has repurposed a bit of the message in a new Instagram post, turning it into a rallying cry to “Wake Up and Register to Vote.” See his posting, which includes his endorsement of the Joe Biden / Kamala Harris ticket in November.
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