Beth’s Music Moment: Green Day’s Uno! Dos! Tré! Trilogy

Today while I was working out, I listened to the last installment of Green Day’s triple threat, “Tré!” I have to say that it is my favorite. This is just straight-up rock and roll, with a couple of slower songs in there that are quite touching.

Since I’ve listened to all three of them now, I’ll talk about them in general (but share a couple of songs from the third one). It amazes me that they released all three of these in the space of about three months, although as Rolling Stone points out, that’s the way music used to be released. It wasn’t uncommon for bands like the Stones and the Beatles to release two or even three albums in a year. But three months! These aren’t throw-away songs, either—they are all solid, fantastic punk and pop and punk-pop songs that seem to encapsulate the history of rock and roll.

I’ve written about some of my favorites from the first two albums. One of my favorites on this one is the slower “Drama Queen,” with the line “I think she’s going psycho.” Another is “Dirty Rotten Bastards.” I love the change in tempos in this longish song, and I think it really rocks! A smokin’ hot guitar solo and amazingly, a genuinely cool bass solo!



My other favorite closes out the album and the trilogy: a ballad called “The Forgotten.” It turns out this was used in one of the sparkly vampire movies...hell, what was the name of those? Oh, the Twilight movies. Yeah. Which is kind of like “eww, ick.” But I’ll forgive the guys for that, because this song is a beauty.



I don’t know what it was about that song, but as I sat there cycling away on the recumbent bike, listening to it, it got to me so bad that I cried. Is it Billie Joe’s voice? The way the song sounds? The lyrics? I don’t know, but I didn’t just tear up a little bit...I had actual tears rolling down my face. I played it again and cried more, and at the end I said, “Oh, Billie Joe!” I had to laugh a little at myself, because I was thinking, “Jeez, Beth, get a grip!” But it’s okay. I like it that music can still move me to tears. Just like Third Eye Blind said, the four right chords can make me cry. In my case, that is literally true.

So mad props to Green Day for three stellar albums. You guys blew me away with these. I was writing to Shane, and I said that if you consider this a triple album (which I really do...I don’t see how you could have just one or two of these), I’d put it right up there with that other classic triple album, “Sandinista!” by the Clash. Yeah, I went there! In some ways, it’s almost better—oh no she dih’n’t!—because “Sandinista!” had what I felt was some filler on it, with dubs and remixes. Plenty of solid, great songs, too, but there were also some that I would lift the needle and skip over. I don’t feel that way about this trilogy, and I think all the songs are excellent.

I’ve liked them from the early days (although as I mentioned recently, I got away from them for a bit), but I can say that I have a newfound respect for their talent and musicianship. These songs run the gamut for me: sweet, sad, in-your-face, funny, raunchy, balls-to-the-wall, chills-up-my-spine, and finally, as the last song played, a song that had me crying my little rock and roll heart out. Any band that can have me dancing around our workout area singing “Baby baby it’s FUCK TIME!” at the top of my voice one day and sitting there with tears rolling down my face the next day is doing something right.

If you’re like me and Joan Jett and love rock and roll, you should get these. Seriously. BUY THESE ALBUMS.