NEW YORK — Local Donald Trump supporter Joel Grainston wished Green Day would keep politics out of their song “American Idiot” after singer Billie Joe Armstrong unexpectedly changed the lyrics during a New Year’s Eve performance, confirmed sources who demanded they redo the show with the correct words.
“Unbelievable. Next you’re going to tell me NWA’s ‘Fuck tha Police’ is an anti-cop song that speaks out against police brutality,” said Grainston without breaking eye contact with Fox News on his television while fully reclined in his chair. “I just wish the band would stick to what they do best and keep ‘American Idiot’ to whatever it was supposed to be about in the first place. Something about masturbation, right? In a perfect world, they would be more like Rage Against the Machine and remain neutral in the political landscape. At least I think so. They’re not on Truth Social so I can’t really confirm what they’re about one way or another.”
Fans of Green Day seemed extremely supportive of the lyric change.
“I just can’t get enough of media, music, and anyone with an internet connection telling Trump supporters what catastrophic imbeciles they are,” said longtime fan Emily Stansfield. “It’s like MAGA people can’t take being called an idiot by millionaires who haven’t had to think about money in decades anymore. If we are going to bring this country together, it’ll be by shaming the side I am diametrically opposed to. I wholeheartedly support Billie Joe changing the lyrics to make ‘American Idiot’ more on the nose, but I don’t think it went far enough. We need an updated ‘Basketcase’ too. Mainly because I have no clue what that one is about.”
Music historian Deborah Shanlinger documented other times musicians made updates to match current events.
“Artists have been changing the words to their songs for as long as politically driven tracks have been around,” said Shanlinger. “In fact, Woody Guthrie famously had the sticker on his guitar that read ‘This machine kills fascists.’ However, that message was thought to get lost on fans as fascism still existed afterward, so Woody would update the sticker before each show to name fascists individually. For instance, for his last performance, the sticker read: ‘This machine kills fascists named Greg in Accounting who just got divorced.’ Unfortunately, it only seemed to drive whoever Greg was into extremism though. You win some, you lose some, I guess.”
At press time, Grainston vowed to never listen to another Green Day album that came out after 2000 again despite never really doing that anyway.