donnica59

<ul><li>Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1, 1982. </li><li>At his father's funeral, Billie cried, ran home and locked himself in his room. </li><li>When his mother got home and knocked on the door to Billie's room, </li><li>Billie simply said, "Wake me up when September ends," hence the title.</li><li><br></li><li>"My father died in September of '82, and I purposely, up until that point, never went there,"&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://people.com/billie-joe-armstrong-breaks-down-green-day-hits-exclusive-8430564" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Armstrong reflected to People</a>. </li><li>"I think really what I was doing was processing that loss that I had with this person that I never really knew. </li><li>So I wrote that song for my father and about that loss and how 20 years had passed. </li><li>I remember right after I wrote it, I felt this huge weight off my shoulders."</li><li><br></li><li>The line "seven years has gone so fast" is a reference to how Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt's band Sweet Children (which would morph into Green Day), was formed seven years after Armstrong's father died.</li><li><br></li><li>"20 years has gone so fast" represents the time from his father's death to when Billie Joe wrote the song.</li><li><br></li><li>This was originally slated for Green Day's 2002 compilation album&nbsp;<strong>Shenanigans</strong>, but Billie Joe didn't feel that he was in an emotional state to record it, so the song was held back and used on&nbsp;<strong>American Idiot</strong>.&nbsp;</li><li><br></li><li>The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who directed Nirvana's "<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/nirvana/smells-like-teen-spirit" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Smells Like Teen Spirit</a>" video. </li><li>Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood star in the video, which isn't about Armstrong's father, but more a reflection on the mood in American after the September 11 attacks. </li><li>In an interview with MTV, Bayer said this video was "hands down the greatest thing I've ever done."&nbsp;</li><li>According to VH1's&nbsp;<em>Pop-Up Video</em>, all the explosions in the clip were real. </li><li>One effects guy even had to dodge a rocket when it flew through the window where he was stationed.</li></ul><p><br></p>