


But the "iron fist" was actually used in the video for "Walking Contradiction", when the band members meet at a car towards the end of the video. The car features a hood ornament in the shape of the hand and heart grenade image from the American Idiot album cover, which was also used in the video for "Holiday". The video features a 1968 green Mercury Monterey convertible that was modified for filming in the "Holiday" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" videos. The music videos for "Holiday" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" were filmed with a single, continuous storyline - the video for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" picks up where "Holiday"'s left off, with the last few seconds of "Holiday" audible at the start of the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" video. The video also features performance footage of the band playing the song in an abandoned warehouse.

Scenes are interspersed with video footage, taken from around Los Angeles, of homeless people and other miserable sights. Some clips show Tre looking like he's about to cry and Mike comforting him. The award-winning music video for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", which was directed by Samuel Bayer, depicts the band members after their car has stalled in the desert, and they begin a melancholy walk down a dusty road. The phrase "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" also appears in punk/new wave band Blondie's 1982 minor UK-hit single Island Of Lost SoulsĪ live version of this song can be found on Bullet in a Bible, a live album of Green Day performing at the Milton Keynes National Bowl.īluegrass band Honeywagon did a cover of the song on their tribute album to Green Day Pickin' on Green Day, while the German choir Gregorian did a cover, on their Masters of Chant Chapter V album, in the style of a Gregorian Chant. The song also shares some lyrics with the Whitesnake song "Here I Go Again" the words "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" can be found in 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". It appeared on their 1997 album, Goodbye Ellston Avenue. Lyrics from the song bear some resemblance to the Aaron Cometbus-penned track "I Walk Alone," recorded by Pinhead Gunpowder, a band in which Billie Joe Armstrong also sings. Four earlier songs also have the same title: an old Harry Warren song, a Hanoi Rocks song, a Marianne Faithfull song, and a song by Brian Setzer from his 1986 album The Knife Feels Like Justice. In the 2007 VH1 Storytellers program featuring Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong stated that the title of the song was "nicked" from the famous Gottfried Helnwein painting of the same title, which features James Dean. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is sung first and then fades into Passion (After the Battle version) from the Kingdom Hearts II original soundtrack.īillie Joe Armstrong wrote the song while he was in his son Joey's bedroom.

This song was covered by Japanese pop singer Hikaru Utada acoustically with a guitar during an internet broadcast in December 2007. The mix consisted of elements from "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", "Wonderwall", Travis' "Writing to Reach You" and Aerosmith's "Dream On" (another remix by Party Ben featured this, "Wonderwall" and Kanye West's "Flashing Lights"). Gallagher's reaction may have partly been due to the emergence of "Boulevard of Broken Songs", a popular mash-up mixed by San Francisco DJ and producer Party Ben in late 2006. I, at least, pay the people I steal from that courtesy", referencing the fact that "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" uses the same chord progression as Oasis' hit single "Wonderwall". Noel Gallagher of Oasis critised Green Day in late 2006, saying, "They should have the decency to wait until I am dead.
