Song Of The Week: "Last Night On Earth"
By Aska /May. 7, 2012 / Comments
Song of the Week for this week is the "unapologetic love song" Last Night On Earth, track 7 from Green Day's 8th studio album, 2009's 21st Century Breakdown. The song is also featured in the American Idiot musical, fitting into the storyline between She's a Rebel and Too Much Too Soon.
Last Night on Earth follows straight through without a pause from the album's previous track Christian's Inferno, suggesting that this song is the calm withdrawal after the explosive rage the character of Christian has just experienced. The line "if I lose everything in the fire" could directly relate back to the fire of Christian's Inferno; he's still completely and utterly in love with Gloria despite his current emotional turmoil, she's the one thing that survives his emotional purge. He is, however, doubtful that she truly gets the message, saying she might "dare to second guess" and asking at the end of the song if his love ever made it through to her. Billie Joe has stated that this song originally was put on the album to level out some of the anger, and was not written specifically for the story line, instead he wrote it to his wife, Adrienne.
Musically, Last Night On Earth is one of the softest, slowest songs on 21CB, and a very stark contrast to its adjoining Christian's Inferno. The slow, airy guitar that weaves in with Billie's soft vocals and slow, tentative beat gives the song a sort of hazy, dream-like quality, as if Christian is in some sort of emotionally-drained stupor when he says all this to Gloria. It's this dream-like sound that is also played upon in the song's use in American Idiot: The Musical, where the lead characters of Johnny and Whatsername dance in a drug-induced high while Johnny's alter-ego Saint Jimmy watches on and sings along adoringly.
This is the official video that greenday.com released for a live version Last Night On Earth in December of 2010, using footage from Green Day's concerts:
Lyrics for the song can be found here, and this is Last Night On Earth's Song of the Week thread, where you'll find some member-discussion. Feel free to stop by and post your opinion or nominate next week' song.
Last Night on Earth follows straight through without a pause from the album's previous track Christian's Inferno, suggesting that this song is the calm withdrawal after the explosive rage the character of Christian has just experienced. The line "if I lose everything in the fire" could directly relate back to the fire of Christian's Inferno; he's still completely and utterly in love with Gloria despite his current emotional turmoil, she's the one thing that survives his emotional purge. He is, however, doubtful that she truly gets the message, saying she might "dare to second guess" and asking at the end of the song if his love ever made it through to her. Billie Joe has stated that this song originally was put on the album to level out some of the anger, and was not written specifically for the story line, instead he wrote it to his wife, Adrienne.
Musically, Last Night On Earth is one of the softest, slowest songs on 21CB, and a very stark contrast to its adjoining Christian's Inferno. The slow, airy guitar that weaves in with Billie's soft vocals and slow, tentative beat gives the song a sort of hazy, dream-like quality, as if Christian is in some sort of emotionally-drained stupor when he says all this to Gloria. It's this dream-like sound that is also played upon in the song's use in American Idiot: The Musical, where the lead characters of Johnny and Whatsername dance in a drug-induced high while Johnny's alter-ego Saint Jimmy watches on and sings along adoringly.
This is the official video that greenday.com released for a live version Last Night On Earth in December of 2010, using footage from Green Day's concerts:
Lyrics for the song can be found here, and this is Last Night On Earth's Song of the Week thread, where you'll find some member-discussion. Feel free to stop by and post your opinion or nominate next week' song.
