Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day song)
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was the second single from
Green Day's ninth studio album,
American Idiot. Released in
2005, the single peaked at number two in the
United States, becoming Green Day's first and only top-five single, and their most successful single to date.
The song's broad appeal was demonstrated by its performance on several less-publicized
Billboard singles charts. It became one of only two songs to ever reach #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks, Modern Rock Tracks, and Adult Top 40 charts.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams's popularity was also increased, by being featured in the Trailer/Commercial to
Lords of Dogtown, a movie based on a Skating team, and was biographical of the story of the Zephyr Boys in general.
The song was co-written by Green Day (with
Billie Joe Armstrong writing the lyrics), and was co-produced by Green Day and
Rob Cavallo. In this moderate midtempo characterized by moody and depressing lyrics, Green Day speaks from the point of view of
Jesus of Suburbia as they describe his loneliness after arriving at The City. An alternate explanation of the lyrics is that Billie Joe Armstrong is exploring the effect that his "broken dreams" in showbusiness had on him.
The song has also reached some publicity over a mash-up that was created that used the song. As the song has the same guitar chords from as
Oasis' "
Wonderwall"(however they are in different keys), the two were combined into a popular mash-up named "
Boulevard of Broken Songs". The mash-up altered the two songs into one another (along with "
Writing to Reach You" written and performed by
Travis, which also shares the chords).
At the
Grammy Awards of 2006 this song was named
Record of the Year.
Two earlier songs have the same title: an old
Harry Warren song[
1], and a song by
Brian Setzer from his 1986 album
The Knife Feels Like Justice. Also, the song's name shares the lyrics of the
Elvis Costello song "Brilliant Mistake", the
Allman Brothers Band song "End of the Line", and the
Deadsy song "The Key To Gramercy Park".
This song is in the key of F minor. Its
key signature is A-flat, tonically equivalent to the four flats found in the keys of the preceding three songs; however, the use of the
natural minor chord at the beginning of each phrase marks the song as being in a minor key.
The song is four minutes twenty seconds in length, at a leisurely 86 bpm.
The music video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams starts where "
Holiday" left off -appropriate, because the first chord in Boulevard is also the last chord in Holiday. The band's car, a 1968 blue-green Mercury Monterrey, breaks down on a barren road, presumably the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Billie Joe Armstrong,
Mike Dirnt and
Tré Cool get out of the car and walk along the road. Its background is filled with broken things and other items representing misery. The setting later changes to a road in the city; again, this road represents broken dreams, such as homelessness. The video occasionally cuts to the band playing.
Samuel Bayer, the director of all of the music videos off of
American Idiot, made "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" look aged by using several techniques, such as putting his burning cigarettes out on it, and by scratching it with an eyepiece. He even dared young directors to do it as well in the making of it.
The video of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" won six awards at the
MTV Video Music Awards in
2005, most notably for
Video of the Year. It also won
Best Group Video,
Best Rock Video,
Best Direction,
Best Editing, and
Best Cinematography.
On an unrelated note, this song was covered by
Japanese pop singer
Utada Hikaru acoustically with a guitar during an internet broadcast in December 2005. A video of it can be found
here. Boulevard of Broken Dreams is sung first and then fades into
Passion (After the Battle version) from the
Kingdom Hearts 2 original soundtrack.
Chart Trajectories
| U.K. Top 75 Singles |
|---|
| Week | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20!21 |
|---|
| Position | '''5787691311142118203442465558585967| 66 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 |
|---|
| Week | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|
| Position | 716555482718181611883432222'''25| Week | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | | | | |
|---|
| Position | 66711151515192324273539404145 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
*
Green Day official website*
Lyrics, Song Meanings, and Info*
Complete Lyrics*
Lyrics And User Written Meaning
