Green Day’s nine-minute masterpiece Jesus Of Suburbia started out in much less epic fashion – as the band have shared from their forthcoming American Idiot (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition).
Green Day have just released an old Jesus Of Suburbia demo… and would you believe it, it’s only two minutes long!
The band’s nine-minute, five-movement epic – taken from American Idiot – has become a firm fan-favourite since its release 20 years ago, with many believing it to be Billie Joe and co.’s greatest song ever.
And now you can hear how it started coming together, as Green Day have shared a demo from their forthcoming American Idiot (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition).
This version of Jesus Of Suburbia still features that iconic opening – ‘I’m the son of rage and love / The Jesus of Suburbia’ – and the first couple of minutes are pretty much as we’ve all come to know and love, but the demo’s missing the four movements after: City Of The Damned, I Don’t Care, Dearly Beloved and Tales Of Another Broken Home. Still, it’s extremely cool to hear what it would go on to become!
On American Idiot’s actual 20th anniversary last month, Green Day posted: “And just like that 20 years, happy anniversary American Idiot. We had no idea what this album would become, but we knew that it meant something to us, and it clearly resonated with you too. To anyone who’s blasted it in their car, sang it at the top of their lungs, or found a piece of themselves in these songs – thank you.”
Check out the demo version of Jesus Of Suburbia below:
Read the Jesus Of Suburbia demo lyrics:
I'm the son of rage and love
The Jesus of Suburbia
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
And 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 or 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
Doing someone else's cocaine
And 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
And 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
That don't believe in me
That don't believe in me
That don't believe in me
Plus, hear Boulevard Of Broken Dreams live from Irving Plaza:
And B-side Shoplifter:
In a 2005 interview with Kerrang!, Billie Joe reflected of the instant success of the album: “I think what American Idiot has done for us is really change our history in a lot of ways. It created a new future for us. It’s made all of our albums since Dookie make sense for people who weren’t up to speed with what we were doing. Obviously having all this critical acclaim is a first, but that’s all.”
“Back then [in 1994] success was so new to us that we didn’t know what to do with it,” added Mike Dirnt. “We just wanted to prove we weren’t a flash in the pan. We’ve proved that. Back then I thought we had something to prove; now I think we’ve proved something.”
Read this: Who are Green Day’s fans?
