Jesus of Suburbia

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 shit 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.