Wake Me Up When September Ends Song Analysis

Losing a loved one is a hard thing to deal with. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day lost his father, Andrew Armstrong, to esophageal cancer when Billie Joe was ten years old. To depict Billie Joe Armstrong’s pain of losing his father in “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Green Day employs repetitive allusion, dreary imagery, and simple symbolism in order to show Armstrong “never forgets what [he] lost.”

            According to Green Day, “the innocent can never last.” This is alluding to Andrew Armstrong; Billie Joe believes his father died too soon, so therefore every innocent person will die before their time. Green Day repeats this line three times in “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” The song title also alludes to Billie Joe’s father. Andrew Armstrong died on September 10, 1982. So he doesn’t have to deal with the painful memories of his father during the month he died, Billie Joe wants someone to “wake [him] up when September ends.”

            Images of “rain…falling from the stars” are paired with Billie Joe feeling as though he is “drenched in [his] pain.” Pictures of a funeral are also present; “ring out the bells again/like we did when spring began.” In the live version of “Wake Me Up When September Ends” from the album Bullet in a Bible, Billie Joe chokes over many lines; he begins crying the first time he says the song title. Billie Joe crying enforces the illustration of his grief in the lyric where he states that he feels as though he is “drenched in [his] pain again.”

            Rain does not literally fall “from the stars.” However, this abstract thought simply means that Billie Joe is crying when he thinks of his loss; the rain represents his tears and the stars are symbolic of his eyes. When Billie Joe says: “as my memory rests/but never forgets what I lost,” he is saying that he has learned how to live with the loss of his father; however, he will never forget the father he once had.

            “Summer has come and past,” and Green Day has utilized recurring allusion, bleak imagery, and uncomplicated symbolism to illustrate Billie Joe Armstrong’s ache of losing his father. Andrew Armstrong will never be forgotten by his youngest son; he will always live in loving memory.