Run time: 57 mins

Run day – Tuesday 6th February, 2024.

This is a backdated post because I started the project in January before I decided to start this blog.

I don’t remember the last time that I’ve run for this long, especially without walking for bits of it, but I’m also learning that I’m more capable of things than I think or feel in the moment.

American Idiot is an album that made a huge impact on me and most of the things around me at the time. CLASSIC. It dominated 2004 and the impact reverberated for a few years post. I can’t really overstate that. Here is an example:

This is me, with a red fringe, at some point in time between 2004 and 2007.

As soon as I started my run, I felt like I’d been smacked in the head with a nostalgia wand and everything just came flooding back to me.

My favourite track on the album is Holiday/Boulevard of Broken Dreams and I would have cringed for years if someone had told me that Boulevard was a meaningful song that held a genuine signficance for them, but I’m trying not to be a jerk anymore. I love that song. I love how I feel when it starts to play, when I first hear that tremolo guitar effect. It feels like I’m 14 years old and I’m mopping the floor at Subway Strathpine on a school night. I swig the tail end of a sour Fanta and lament that my parents don’t understand me, neither do my friends, and I’m going to have to write this all in my diary when I get home. At the time, I didn’t really understand that American Idiot was a concept/narrative album that spoke of (and to) a disillusioned generation. But I was a teen and I FELT it, even though the main source of my suffering was not being allowed to get my lip pierced.

I also love Give Me Novacaine. It’s a beautiful song.

American Idiot is the last Green Day album that I would have listened to the whole way through, so after this, it’s all new to me. I’m excited by that.

Thanks for sticking around! 21st Century Breakdown next!