This week's Song of the Week is the timeless 16, off Green Day's first album,1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours. 16 is Green Day at their beautifully simplistic best - it's a universally relatable song for any teenager approaching adulthood; the yearning for the care-free years of childhood, and the looking forward with trepidation at the responsibilities and pressures of growing older. Lyrics aside, 16 is also great musically, with catchy guitar and drum parts and a very funky bassline - it's very upbeat, despite its lyrical woes.

This is a remarkably good quality recording of Green Day's performance at Billie and Mike's high school, Pinole Valley High School, at the annual Foreign Foods Day, May 10th, 1990.


(video credit: soldamerican)

Lyrics to the song can be found here, and this is 16's Song of the Week thread on the forum. Feel free to stop by and post your opinion, or nominate next week's song