(Credits: Press)
American Idiot by Green Day is one of the best-selling albums of all time for a reason: it spoke to the truth of a disillusioned world, provided a reckoning, and was quintessentially male while doing it.
That might seem like a bit of a glib or heavy-handed comment to make, but the fact of the matter is that you probably couldn’t make an album like that without its leading force being a blazing sense of masculine bravado. Being the peak sound of Green Day, it was their goal to shoot in the back of the net, fair and square.
It’s easy enough to state this in principle, but when you began to strip back the veneers of the overarching themes of war and hatred, what lay beneath was a far more tender portrait of heartbreak which perhaps was the catalyst factor for such a disillusioned society, more than anything else.
And, of course, what is the main source of all this heartbreak? Romance. Break-ups. Women. It’s maybe a bit too presumptuous to claim that Green Day’s female counterparts were really what steered the ship on American Idiot, but they certainly played a more definitive role than many would believe, especially on a song like ‘Letterbomb’.
It was that moment of breaking free, of playing into the trope of the vulnerability of the male ego, that inspired the spoken words at the beginning of the song that went: “Nobody likes you. Everyone left you. They’re all out without you, having fun”. But in finding the voice to say those fated words, the band couldn’t have struck any better than with the feminist icon herself, Kathleen Hanna.
What did Kathleen Hanna add to ‘Letterbomb’ by Green Day?
As the character of Whatshername leaves Jesus of Suburbia behind in the city, she utters those words as a final piercing farewell to be rid of his arrogance and inflated sense of self. Naturally, as one of the most prominent leaders of the 1990s feminist movements that preceded this moment, it was a sentiment that Hanna could get on board with.
Spearheading the riot grrrl movement as well as being the frontwoman of Bikini Kill, it’s hardly as if Hanna needed to qualify herself for the role – it was always hers for the taking. But adding that rare female addition into the mix of American Idiot was a mighty task, so ‘Letterbomb’ really needed to make a statement.
It most definitely did achieve that, with many fans considering the track one of the all-time greats from Green Day, never mind only within the scores of American Idiot. Through the power of one short line, the entire dynamic of the album was given something so much more delectable – and it was all thanks to Hanna.
There’s no getting away from the fact that Green Day centre hugely on the principles of ego and persona that only a male outlook on life can really cultivate. Of course, they have to be careful in how they walk this line, but with a powerhouse woman like Hanna on board, they clearly knew they couldn’t go far wrong.
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