Format 7"
CD
digital download Genre Punk rock
pop punk Label Reprise
Warner Bros. | Recorded March 26, 2004 Length 3:52 | |
Released March 14, 2005 (2005-03-14) | ||
"Holiday" is a song by American punk rock band Green Day. It was released as the third single from the group's seventh studio album American Idiot. The song is in the key of F minor. Though the song is a prelude to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", "Holiday" was released as a single later on, in the spring of 2005. The song achieved considerable popularity across the world and performed moderately well on the charts. In the US, it reached number nineteen on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks and Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks charts. It debuted at number eleven in the UK and at number twenty-one in Canada. The song has been featured in the 2006 comedy film, Accepted. The Vancouver Canucks of the NHL once used it as their goal song. The song also appeared in an episode of CSI: NY.
Contents
Background
One of two explicitly political songs on the album (the other being fellow single "American Idiot"), "Holiday" took two months to finish writing, as Armstrong continually felt his lyrics were not good enough. Aided by the encouragement of Cavallo, he completed the song. "Holiday" was inspired by the music of Bob Dylan. Armstrong wanted to write something stronger than "American Idiot", with harsh language to illustrate his points. The song takes aim at American conservatism. Armstrong felt that Republican politicians were "strategic" in alienating one group of people—for example, the gay community—in order to buy the votes of another. He later characterized the song as an outspoken "fuck you" to then-President George W. Bush. Armstrong for the first time imagined how he would perform the songs he was writing, and envisioned an audience responding to his lyric "Can I get another Amen?" The song's bridge, which Armstrong hoped to be as "twisted as possible," was designed as a "politician's worst nightmare."
The chorus's refrain—"This is our lives on holiday"—was intended to reflect the average American’s apathy on the issues of the day. Armstrong characterized the song as "not anti-American, it’s anti-war."
Live performances
In live performances, video screens would display footage of helicopters dropping bombs. In New Jersey, at the Revolution Radio Tour, the lyrics "Pulverize the Eiffel Towers" were changed to "Pulverize the Donald Trump Towers".
Personnel
Music video
The first half of the video takes place in a car (a 1968 Mercury Monterey convertible), where Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool are partying around in Las Vegas. In the second half they are cavorting in a bar where each of the band members portrays several different characters. Billie Joe Armstrong plays the mentioned Representative of California, two fighting clients, a punk rocker and a nerd. Tré Cool plays a drunken priest, an arrested patron, and a female prostitute. Mike Dirnt plays the barman, another punk, and a policeman. There are also scenes featuring seemingly worn-down can-can dancers. At the end of the video, the car smokes to a halt in the field that "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" begins in. Like the video for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", this video was directed by Samuel Bayer.
The band arrived at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards in the same car, this time "pimped out" by James Washburn, a friend of the band.
Track listing
7" picture disc
Vinyl Boxset
Notable covers
The song was first covered by the Irish pop punk band Scuba Dice in 2006 and charted at number 8 on the Irish Singles Chart, number 2 on the download chart that week, and went on to be the forty-second best-selling single of 2008 by an Irish artist.
Hayseed Dixie also performed a bluegrass cover of the song on the band's album A Hot Piece of Grass.
The song "Dr. Who on Holiday", from the mash-up album American Edit, combines "Holiday", The KLF single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and the original theme from the television show Doctor Who, while the intro juxtaposes George W. Bush with the Daleks, a race of monsters from the aforementioned British television series.