Green Day explains why it withheld release of ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’

Rock band Green Day explained why they withheld the release of a song off of their upcoming album in a recent interview with Canadian radio station 102.1 The Edge. 

Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said their song “The American Dream is Killing Me” from their album “Saviors,” which is out January according to Genius, was written “about three or four years ago.” He implied they didn’t want to include it on their 2020 album, “Father of All Motherf‑‑‑‑‑s,” because it was “low-hanging fruit for — because we have just terrible politics and terrible division in [the] United States.”

“But this time we brought it out and it felt like it was the perfect time for it,” Armstrong continued. “We got away from the politics for a while, to where we just didn’t want to be like, you know, another pundit on CNN, like finger pointing.”

The song includes lyrics like “Send out an S.O.S., It’s getting serious, Bulldoze your family home, Now it’s a condo,” according to Genius. The band is not known for shying away from politics and has a well-known political anthem from 2004: “American Idiot.”

“American Idiot” is often cited as a protest song of the post-9/11, Iraq War and Bush administration years. In 2018, the song climbed the charts in the United Kingdom ahead of a visit from former President Trump.

“[P]olitical songs … it takes a lot of heart to do that,” Armstrong continued in the interview. “And I think it’s like, if you keep doing it for the sake of doing it just because you’re angry, then you take the heart out of it.”