Politics and Social Justice
When asked his opinion regarding whether all musicians ought to try to add a social or political message to their work, Armstrong replied that
| “ | The only people who should sing about social issues or politics are the ones who aren't full of shit. | ” |
American Idiot was released two months before former President of the United States George W. Bush was reelected, and as a result the album became protest art. Created as an anti-war album, American Idiot contains many new-age protest songs, like Holiday which was against George Bush's decision to invade Iraq. Armstrong described the song as a means by which "to battle your way out of your own ignorance".
Read more about this topic: Green Day/Genre Disputes
Famous quotes containing the words politics, social and/or justice:
“It is not so much that women have a different point of view in politics as that they give a different emphasis. And this is vastly important, for politics is so largely a matter of emphasis.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“I complacently accepted the social order in which I was brought up. I probably would have continued in my complacency if the happy necessity of self-support had not fallen to my lot; if self-support had not deepened and widened my contacts and my experience.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“The only government that I recognize—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army—is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)