Dookie, Melissa

SMOOTHWALL: This content has been blocked because it does not comply with our acceptable usage policy. Vulgar search terms. The request was logged.

This is the message I got when I tried to listen to Green Day's Word-I-Shall-Not-Type-on-Work-Computer. I've been blocked from this week's RC pick. Which is ironic, because I had also blocked this album out of my memory. I first thought it was by blink-182. Then, I said "I like American Idiot," to the scoffing and resentment of my husband. American Idiot wouldn't have gotten me "Smooth-walled" (the company we use for such vulgar searches).

The request was logged. Awesome. Now I'm definitely on some list.

As for this sketchy content, it is what it has always been to me; good, but not me. It's me trying on my brother's shoes, walking around in them, and then heading back to my pink world of fuzzy stuffies and dolls.

I remember singing "I'm not growin' up, I'm just burning out," at the top of my lungs, as if I knew what burning out even meant. This leads me to wonder about Billie Joe's voice. What is that? The lilt to everything he sings has always boggled me, but works for their sound. I was also convinced he would have an accent when he spoke. He does not.

The light quality of "Having a Blast" up against the darkness of a bombing is fascinating, but weird too. Or is it that I just can't take punk music seriously? It is too fuzzy and loud for me. I just don't love an aggressive guitar sound playing like static in the background. Deep, humming, groaning, static. I turn down the volume of my music when I need to focus on my driving, because my brain can't make it all work.

I knew every word of "Longview," but would never have guessed that title. "Bite my lip and close my eyes / Take me away to paradise / I'm so damn bored, I'm going blind / And I smell like shit." How rebellious had I been to sing out that "shit" years ago, and bang my head around as if I knew what I was doing? I should've been blocked for vulgar content years ago! "Welcome to Paradise," is classic.  "Basket Case," yes, duh, I know this song! "Sometimes I give myself the creeps / sometimes my mind plays tricks on me," and the rest of that lyrical phrase are iconic. Sadly, I think "All By Myself" probably should've stayed hidden.

Green Day does a really cool job of storytelling and lyric-writing that, for a moment, I can put aside my biases to appreciate. We get different perspectives and topics in one album while holding up a clear musical style. We get feminist commands like "She" paired with the tiresome apathy of "Sassafras Roots." "When I Come Around" sings to the awkwardness of one-sided relationships ("Well, don't get lonely now / And dry your whining eyes") without being cliché (sorry, Swifties!) and "Coming Clean" works in the revelations of bisexuality and non-conformity.

Sure, my work may block this content, but it should exist at both the time it was created and now. We can see those vulgar search terms as secondary to the bigger purposes; perspectives, story-telling, angst, and apathy.