Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield” by Green Day:

Last week I was talking to Daniel, who’s been discovering and listening to California punk bands from the 1990s. He mentioned in particular that he liked Bad Religion (which is proper and correct), but also that he didn’t have any time for Green Day. I’m mostly sympathetic to that view. I’ve never been a huge fan of Green Day, and their turn, over the last twenty or so years, into an only occasionally interesting hard rock band pushed me further away.  However, the band’s long career and (d)evolution might make it less obvious that through the early 1990s, including their breakthrough to the mainstream with Dookie, Green Day played punk with a great ear for a pop melody.  This song is one of my favorites from the early years of Green Day, and it’s songs like this that mean that even though I didn’t love them then, and don’t really like them much at all now, I’ll still willing to pay at least a little attention to what they do, and will still recommend to people like Daniel that they go back to those early albums.