American Idiot by Green Day - Song of the Decade

Song Info

"American Idiot" is a song by American punk rock band Green Day, and is the first single from their seventh album, American Idiot. According to the American Idiot Songfacts, Billie Joe Armstrong was inspired to write this song after hearing a jingoistic Lynyrd Skynyrd song being played on his car radio, whilst driving to the studio. Released in 2004, the single peaked at #61 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Green Day's first Billboard Hot 100 chart entry (excluding singles Read more...

Green Day

Song Stats

Highest chart position:

Weeks in the chart:

Awards

This song has not won any awards that are recognised by Song of the Decade. We include BRIT Awards, Ivor Novello Awards, NME Awards, MTV Europe Awards, MOBO Awards and BPI Awards.

Comments (32)

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delhood69

@ 10:07am on 7 November 2009

sums up this mad decade

helenjolliffe

@ 1:04pm on 4 November 2009

amazing!

CalliopesDream

@ 9:31pm on 30 October 2009

One word - AWESOME!

@ 2:29pm on 29 October 2009

WHAT A COME BACK!!!!! Green Day are amazing. Definitely THE song of the decade

STARGIRL05

@ 7:05am on 29 October 2009

i totally agree with all those before me, this song is one of the best songs of the decade!!! i cant wait to c them in concert on 19 dec!!!!! :D xxxx

jonkeen

@ 10:35am on 23 October 2009

Agreed - as well as being a superb rock song that invades your brain, this song represents perfectly all that's gone wrong in the world over the last ten years.

CLRaven

@ 10:09pm on 20 October 2009

From the intro, this song just pumps pure rock through your veins and doesn't let you go 'til it's finished.

Remus

@ 6:51pm on 19 October 2009

I defy anyone to hear this and not air drum or air guitar. It must be played at top volume when driving. Tre's drumming just commands your heart to thump to his beat. Is he the best drummer around? Definitely.

adrian

@ 6:29pm on 19 October 2009

There's no question that this is the best song of the last 10 years. As well as being a simply awesome and high-energy rock tune, it showed the world that Green Day can be rebellious about things that actually matter. It reignited their career and they are still riding the wave today. Of course, its content was also perfectly timed, and frankly probably did quite a lot of good for the image of America in the rest of the world. It showed other countries that a massive number of people in the US always realised that what was going on in the political world was total idiocy, and may have gone some way to dispelling a lot of the semi-racist myths about American people all being idiots. Plus it pissed off the far right in the US, which is always a good thing. But, above all, it's just a brilliantly written song to which it's impossible not to at least tap your feet, or at most jump around and go completely mental.