i’m listening to pandora and the random song that came on was “welcome to paradise” by green day. when i was in 4th grade, my friends and i were absolutely obsessed with green day. we also had a teacher who had no control over our classroom, letting us have free reign over our daily activities. we were learning about the environment, and were given an assignment to create an environmental message – be it through poetry, picture, song, interpretive dance, whatever. my group(made up of me and my best friends – self proclaimed the “three musketeers, and target practice”) decided to cover green day’s “basketcase” and change all of the lyrics so that they related to recycling. it was probably the greatest recreation of a song to ever exist. i remember it being written on lion king stationary and having it deal with baby poop, a boy in our class who smelled, and how we’d rather recycle then go to his house.  needless to say, it was a hit when we performed it in front of our class and i’m pretty sure one of my friends still has the lyrics sheet saved.

in other green day stories – after writing the lyrics down to “longview” in one of my notebooks(also in 4th grade), it was found by my mom who freaked out and went on a tipper gore rampage to prevent anyone from listening to this offensive music. she even went as far as taking my prized possession copy of “dookie” to our principals office and smashing it on his desk with a hammer. hahahah. best mom.