Song of the Week: "King for a Day"
By Aska /Oct. 31, 2011 / Comments
In celebration of the great Halloween tradition of dressing up in costumes, this week's Song of the Week is the fabulous King for a Day off Green Day's eclectic 5th studio album, Nimrod, released in 1997. The song has been a live favourite since its release, and has evolved into an on stage party of sorts, with the band donning ridiculously hilarious outfits for its performance.
There's really not much to do in the way of reading into the lyrics - the song is quite clearly about a boy who likes to secretly dress up in his mother's clothing, much to the disapproval of his father, who ends up throwing the kid in therapy. Even though his dad doesn't like it, it makes the kid feel like a "king for a day" and a "princess by dawn". If you want to read into the lyrics a bit, the song is all about refuting gender stereotypes ("sugar and spice and everything nice wasn't made for only girls"; not all boys aspire to be 'GI Joe', unless of course that GI Joe is "in pantyhose") despite the obvious opposition to breaking those gender roles - "who put the drag in the drag queen?".
While King for a Day's lyrics are brilliantly hilarious, it's when they're coupled with the song's music that this song really becomes special. The 'oompa' style drumming with the constant up-beats coupled with the incredibly camp horn parts (and the shout-along-able chorus) are what makes this song so damn danceable, and such a live favourite.
This week's video is Green Day's performance of King for a Day on Goat Island in Sydney, Australia on Oct 19th, 2000. The whole Goat Island show is brilliant, but this has to be the best part of the performance - just wait for the horn solos to come in. It's fun to see how much the song has changed live.
Lyrics to the song can be found here, and this is King for a Day's Song of the Week thread, where you'll find a greater song-analysis and some member-discussion. Feel free to stop by and post your opinion, or nominate next week's song.
There's really not much to do in the way of reading into the lyrics - the song is quite clearly about a boy who likes to secretly dress up in his mother's clothing, much to the disapproval of his father, who ends up throwing the kid in therapy. Even though his dad doesn't like it, it makes the kid feel like a "king for a day" and a "princess by dawn". If you want to read into the lyrics a bit, the song is all about refuting gender stereotypes ("sugar and spice and everything nice wasn't made for only girls"; not all boys aspire to be 'GI Joe', unless of course that GI Joe is "in pantyhose") despite the obvious opposition to breaking those gender roles - "who put the drag in the drag queen?".
While King for a Day's lyrics are brilliantly hilarious, it's when they're coupled with the song's music that this song really becomes special. The 'oompa' style drumming with the constant up-beats coupled with the incredibly camp horn parts (and the shout-along-able chorus) are what makes this song so damn danceable, and such a live favourite.
This week's video is Green Day's performance of King for a Day on Goat Island in Sydney, Australia on Oct 19th, 2000. The whole Goat Island show is brilliant, but this has to be the best part of the performance - just wait for the horn solos to come in. It's fun to see how much the song has changed live.
Lyrics to the song can be found here, and this is King for a Day's Song of the Week thread, where you'll find a greater song-analysis and some member-discussion. Feel free to stop by and post your opinion, or nominate next week's song.
