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/Archive 1
Famous quotes containing the words politics, social and/or justice:
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“The day-laborer is reckoned as standing at the foot of the social scale, yet he is saturated with the laws of the world. His measures are the hours; morning and night, solstice and equinox, geometry, astronomy, and all the lovely accidents of nature play through his mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)