My First Love (Green Day)

I discovered my first love when I turned on the TV and tuned in to Fuse, a music network. I’d never really watched this channel or any other music channel much before, and I was 12 years old going on 13. They were hosting a show with a huge line up of punk rock music videos. I was hooked immediately. It sounds really stupid now, but once I saw this music video for a band I’ve never heard of, I fell in love with the sound of the music, the melodic voice of the lead singer, the meaningful lyrics and the feelings I got when I watched the video. The band was called Green Day. I continued watching more music videos and listened to the radio more often instead of being stuck in the past.

When Green Day came on the radio I would crank it up so loud that I got yelled at, but I didn’t care anymore. These guys who called themselves Green Day had changed the way I thought about my life and also helped me deal with what was going on at that point. I had been through a lot already, including being physically and emotionally abused and having to cope with my parents arguing 24/7. I started researching Green Day and I listened and saw more and more music content on TV and online, looking up lyrics to songs. I remember hearing the song Boulevard Of Broken Dreams and thinking “this is my life and I have to deal with this the right way.”

I got some Green Day CD’s and started rebelling a lot more. This is pretty private, but I actually thought about suicide before I bought American Idiot. I know I must sound like a million other teenagers, but I still don’t brag about the fact that Green Day really did save my life. I think that the moment I heard the song Give Me Novocaine, I could ultimately relate to it because I was hurting myself. I felt like the songs on the album defined me as a person. I loved Green Day so much that when people told me they sucked and they were sellouts or posers, I wanted to kill them. I knew those people didn’t understand why I had such a high respect for Green Day.

By that time my step-dad was hitting me and my mom didn’t know what to do about it. It seemed like no matter what I did, I would always be stuck in that apartment with my parents who basically hated each other. I didn’t know what to do until I finally told my therapist I was resorting to self-harm to somehow make it all better. I spent some time living at my aunt and uncles house until things “settled down”. I went back to the old apartment for a month, and then went to live with my grandmother in Danvers because things weren’t getting better. It was such a huge change that I didn’t know how to adjust. When I listened to Green Day I went to a different world, one where my parents didn’t fight, and one where I didn’t have to be scared anymore

After a few months of living at her house I realized that there were some things in life that you couldn’t change, one of those things being my family. I knew that no matter how many times I tried the pain would still be there. After all that I’ve been through, I got by with music as a source of comfort. Later on when I entered high school, I had a breakdown from the kids at school who were harassing me. I tried my hardest to get through that but ended up in a hospital miles away from my family and friends. After that I transferred to BHS, my emotions still very unstable. I didn’t learn anything while in the hospital, so in my freshman year at BHS I got admitted to another hospital.

All the while this was happening I used music as an outlet and a coping method to help me overcome my sadness, anger, and depression. While in the hospital the second time, I learned who my real friends were, who to trust and who not to trust, and the most important lesson I learned was that people cared and loved me for who I was. I think when I listened to Green Day I tuned out all the crap that people were giving me growing up. Green Day was and always will be my inspiration.